Ask HN: Why are meetings necessary before evaluating a service?

1 pointdigitalsanctum2 comments

It seems that more and more Saas companies insist on you booking a meeting with them prior to being able to evaluate or purchase the service.

Why is this necessary? It seems like this would cause a lot of potential customers to bounce.

The "meeting" is there fore at least these reasons:

- are you going to be a "likely" customer?

- do you have a problem (or problems) the service can actually solve?

- are you applying the service to the "right" problem(s) you have?

- what other issue(s) can they possibly help address?

- establish a relationship early that can build over time

Why are interviews before evaluating a candidate?

It's possible but much harder to misrepresent things face-to-face.