We've been guilty of this over at <a href="http://www.staffsquared.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.staffsquared.com</a>. It's far too easy, and sometimes fun, to build better/more features than the competition. It's equally difficult for the sales department (and me at times!) to say "no" to new feature requests from potential customers.<p>Conversely, the work to deep dive in to customer usage metrics that tell the story of how users use the app and reach their "Aha!" moment is comparatively dry and time consuming but nonetheless essential. We've set up a number of KPI reports which tell a detailed story of where our triallists and paying customers spend their time in the app and extract value.<p>We use a combination of Google Analytics and custom KPI reporting to watch customers use the app. We've tried 3rd party apps, like Intercom and Mixpanel but keep returning to google analytics.<p>So the good news is that we've identified key KPIs that tell us how likely a trial is to convert. For example, we know that a triallist that has logged in more than x times is > 90% likely to upgrade to paying. This is powerful, as we don't invest time attempting to sell to these. Likewise, we now automatically filter out customers that are not at all engaged with the app, and aim to sell to just those that sit between the two extremes. We've also taken the time to customise life cycle e-mails to triallists according to their levels of engagement. Again, very time consuming work but essential and very rewarding when the results are positive (more no/low touch upgrades = more £'s).<p>Obviously all traillists regardless of engagement level get top notch support. However I'm sure more sales intelligence could be shared with the support team as they're also key to the selling cycle, albeit in a more reactive manner. Support also need to feedback to the onboarding team, as support are front line for people who get stuck and frustrated as a result during a trial.<p>I could talk at length on this subject, conversion rate optimisation is something enjoy and definitely don't spend as much time as I would like actively working on...