Product Testing with real Customers

I recently completed a Product Trial with T-Mobile.

One of the key reasons I signed up for the trial was to learn how companies do modern day product trails and see if I could steal any ideas. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good ideas to steal! It seemed like this was a marketing trail, meaning they wanted to learn how to position the product and create the right messaging. It certainly wasn't a product development trail. Not surprising, as it looks like T-Mobile is going to launch this service soon. The only lesson I learned was : If you want to measure the alignment of the product to your messaging, you need to get your messaging to the customer before they sign up for the trail and before they start the trial. T-Mobile tried to measure the benefits without explaining what they benefits are. Can't get actionable data from customers if you aren't putting their frame of mind in the context you're measuring.