What is the status of the Renewal Discount?

[Preston Davis]

It appears that the Renewal DIscount is either gone or is seriously compromised as myself and many others are seeing almost a 30% increase on the yearly renewal.

This has put us in a terrible situation as we have repeated to our clients what YOU told us: That renewals enjoy a 30% discount. Now I’m getting angry phone calls!

Please tell us PLAINLY what the policy is for yearly renewals. Is it STILL a 30% discount (as previously stated in this forum) or has this changed. I sent a message to support and haven’t heard a word back.

Please advise as I need to know whether to recommend this software to my clients or have them avoid it in favor of a package that actually REWARDS customer loyalty.

Thanks,
Preston

[Caroline]

Hi Preston,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us here. It looks as though our support team over in email has recently followed up with you on this issue, but I wanted to take a moment to provide some extra clarification on our pricing and policies surrounding product renewals.

We’ve offered our plugins and license renewals at a variety of distinct price points over the years, and these price points have always been subject to change due to any number of factors. Quotes on purchase prices obtained from our team members will always be accurate at the time that a quote is provided–however, these quotes are not guaranteed into perpetuity. We’ve expanded on our policies regarding pricing and product changes in our terms & conditions:

https://theeventscalendar.com/terms/

Our company has enjoyed considerable growth in recent years thanks to the support of our dedicated user community, and we’ve expanded our internal resources to match. Rather than compromise on our development efforts or the quality of our support services, we’ve chosen instead to adopt a pricing model for our products and renewals that’s more sustainable in the long term. We feel that delivering any less than our users have come to expect would do a great disservice to both our new and returning customers.

Again, I’m truly sorry for any difficulties that you may have encountered as a result of changes to our renewal rates. We recognize that many of our customers are tasked with providing services and information to their clients, and we regret any undue burden this shift may have imposed. Our support team in email has reached out to you to continue the conversation–if you should have any other questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to follow up with us there. Thanks again for taking the time to connect with us, and let us know if there’s anything else that we can do for you.

[Preston Davis]

Greetings Caroline,

Thank you for timely reply. Yes, the support team did reach out to me and explain a bit more about the reasons for the price increase …and a bit more, for which I am grateful. I’m assuming I missed your blog post announcing the change and the reasoning behind it, but on the off chance that you did not think to announce such a major change, think of the confusion it causes to OUR clients.

Yes, I do understand that you have “the right” to change your prices, however again I did not get (or missed) any notice of the change, nor did I think “Hey I’ve got some free time, let me go and read your terms and conditions”. Silly me.

That said, from time to time the plugin developers I use have had to raise their prices for the same reasons you stated, but in most cases those price increases were applied to new customers and those who purchased prior to the change were “grandfathered in”. Or they offer additional support options. You chose not to do that, so be it.

What it still comes down to is that we are basically buying the plugin again at nearly retail price (-14.00 for the Business License). That, I have NOT seen. Anywhere. And as one who has used support “maybe” a handful of times over the years I’ve used your plugin, this does not add value to my experience. I must take that into consideration when considering whether to continue using this application.

But thanks again for reaching out.

Preston

[Caroline]

Hi Preston,

Thanks for your follow-up. We definitely hear and understand your concerns here, and I want to sincerely apologize for any difficulties that this change has imposed on your business or clientele. We do strive for honesty and clarity in dealings with our users, and we regret that we fell short of that mark here. I’ve passed your comments here along to our products team for further review, and you can rest assured that your feedback will be taken into account for our future user communications. We thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us–we’re grateful for the opportunity to improve!

If there’s anything else that we can assist you with today, we hope that you won’t hesitate to follow up with us via email. We’d be more than glad to continue the conversation there. Thanks again for your feedback and for your continued support. We hope that we’ll have the chance to continue working with you and your clients for many more years to come!

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

[Author]

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