Run a backed-trial board

A backed trial turns the first message into something concrete: before you contact an account, you set up a free trial of your product for them, let it collect real use, and then show them their own working trial. If they don’t take it, the trial is reviewed and removed. This guide walks one campaign through the Backed trial board; the columns, deadlines and rules are explained in Workflow boards.

1. Create the board

Open the campaign, click its Board tab and then Create board (or Campaigns → Boards → New board, and pick the campaign).
In the New board dialog choose A workflow → Backed trial, or Copy from another board and pick the Board to copy to reuse an existing backed-trial board’s setup.
Click Create board.

The workflow has three roles: the preparer (prepares each trial and checks it before contact), the seller (contacts the account and handles the conversation) and the approver (decides whether a trial that didn’t convert is removed or kept). The board assigns its next steps to the people who hold them; a role nobody holds creates unassigned steps, which show in the Unassigned tab of the Work queue. A copied board brings its role holders and timings; on a new board they are set through the Boards API (the app doesn’t edit board settings yet). The default timings: ready check 7 days, never ready 14, contact 3, removal review 28 after first contact.

2. Reserve the accounts you will prepare

Each trial costs work, so pick accounts deliberately: narrow Not started with Search accounts, Any review and Any score, and check each card’s counts of conversations and next steps.

Move the account to Selected / reserved. This reserves it: no other backed-trial board in the project can start a trial for the same account. If one already holds it, the move is refused and tells you which campaign has it. The preparer gets a “Prepare account’s trial” step.

Changed your mind before preparing anything? Move the card to Finished with the Outcome Cancelled before the trial existed: the reservation is released.

3. Record the trial

When the preparer creates the trial in your product, they record it on the card: in the drawer’s Reservation section, click Update and choose the New state:

trial created, with the Radio id (the trial’s identifier in your system) or the Batch reference, and optionally its Codename. This lets the card move to Trial maturing.
creation uncertain when the request was sent but you don’t know whether the trial exists yet. Check your product before anything else; such cards have their own Uncertain creation tab in the Work queue so nobody forgets.
creation failed when it didn’t work; you can set it back to not submitted and try again.

Move the card to Trial maturing once the trial is created; the trial date is recorded. The trial’s link and notes go under Trial details.

4. Check it and mark it ready

After 7 days the preparer gets a “Check the trial and prepare the demo” step and the card turns amber. Nothing moves on its own: the trial is only ready when a person says so.

Move the card to Ready to contact. The Move to dialog asks for both:

the Demo link, and
a Draft of the first message: either A link to the draft (Draft link) or A draft logged in LeadHunter (Draft message; a draft or a message already sent both count).

Checked at (optional, default now) records when you checked it.

If the trial still isn’t ready 14 days after the reservation, the preparer gets a “fix or cancel” step. A trial you give up on before contact goes to Removal review with a Reason.

5. Contact the account

The seller gets a “Contact account with the demo” step, due within 3 days, and the card shows in the Ready but uncontacted tab until it moves. Send the message and log it on the account’s conversation in this campaign (Open conversation in the card’s drawer opens it): the card moves to Contacted, the first contact date is recorded and the 28-day removal clock starts.

If you contacted them outside LeadHunter, move to Contacted by hand: Outside LeadHunter (a call, a visit, another tool) with the Day, Channel and Reference (optional).

6. Handle replies

A reply you log moves the card to In conversation.
A reply an agent logged appears under To confirm in the drawer: say whether it is a real reply, a refusal, an auto-reply or a bounce.
A refusal sends the card to Removal review with the outcome Declined suggested.
Bounces and auto-replies never count.

A reply doesn’t stop the removal clock: a conversation that hasn’t turned into a client 28 days after the first contact still comes up for review. That’s deliberate, so trials don’t run on forever.

7. Won

When they become a client, move the card to Finished with the Outcome Won, the date and a reference (invoice, order or note). Their trial is kept: it becomes theirs. LeadHunter never infers a win from the account’s status.

8. The removal review

A card reaches Removal review after 28 days without a win, on a refusal, or when you send it there. The approver gets a “Decide on account’s trial removal” step and the card shows in the Decisions due and Removal decisions tabs.

In the drawer’s Trial cleanup section, the approver chooses:
- Approve removal: approves removing this exact trial. If the account has become a client meanwhile, LeadHunter refuses and asks you to check.
- Keep the trial, saying Why the trial stays (for example, they asked for more time).
After an approval, someone removes the trial in your product and clicks Confirm removed. If a different trial was recorded since the approval, confirming is refused: approve the new one first. Approved removals waiting for confirmation show in the Cleanup pending tab.
Move the card to Finished with its Outcome (Declined, Not converted or No response). A card can’t finish while the trial’s removal is unresolved.

Once the card is finished and its trial removed or kept, the reservation is released and another board could reserve the account later.

9. Keep it honest

Block a card when something outside the board holds it up (What blocks it, Owner (optional), Review on (optional)).
Correct the stage fixes a wrong move with a Reason; the history keeps both and no date is lost. A correction never releases a reservation. A wrong date is fixed with Correct date under Milestones.
Started cards can’t be removed from the campaign, and a campaign with trials in progress can’t be deleted: archive it instead. Archiving doesn’t release reservations.

10. Read the numbers

Each board keeps weekly numbers: reservations, trials created, ready, first contacts, replies, wins and removals per week, with contact, reply and win rates over cards started at least 28 days ago, the median days to a win and the accounts that are ready but not contacted yet. There is no screen for them in the app yet; read them through the Boards API. Several backed-trial campaigns? The Boards page (Campaigns → Boards) lists their combined view under Combined views.