May 2015 Summaries

Messaging isn't just about text, but rather conversations. The simplest apps on phones are becoming powerful due to the rapid innovation happening in messaging. Typing on a phone is a challenging proposition, yet people message all day long, often more than any other activity. Mobile messaging works for several reasons, including its asynchronous nature, ease of consumption, informality, and expressiveness. These qualities make it an ideal medium for human conversations. The evolution of messaging continues, with the emergence of new features like cards inside messages, which can provide a richer experience by suggesting entire messages or booking tickets to events. This technology is already being explored in apps like WeChat and Line, and may eventually replace traditional notification systems. Messaging platforms are moving at a faster pace than operating systems, making them more agile and able to innovate quickly. The interplay between new apps, their evolving features, and the content they contain creates an overlapping layer that allows for rapid innovation. As messaging continues to evolve, it's likely to become even more expressive and powerful, changing the way we communicate and interact with each other.

We use Intercom to support our users by establishing a customer communication process that defines how issues are resolved and who hears about them. This process is opinionated and personal to our structure, team size, customer base, and culture. We focus on concise, natural, conversational, personal, helpful, responsible, customer-focused, literate, region-agnostic, careful, and thoughtful communication. Our team of nine people covers 19 hours a day across multiple time zones and uses Intercom's features to track user feedback, measure performance indicators such as contacts per active user per week, time to first response, and overall number of contacts per week. We also use tags to categorize conversations and encourage everyone in the company to regularly spend a day in the inbox supporting our customers. This approach helps us deliver great service, avoid scaling issues, and create a scaleable feedback loop that benefits both our product team and individual designers and engineers.

The idea of "mobile first" may be outdated as many mobile-driven businesses are now building complementary web apps designed for larger screens. The optimal screen size is still a moving target, and what matters is not devices but access to consuming and publishing information via screens. Most people spend most of their time in front of large screens, such as giant monitors, and it's likely that the primary screen for work will always be a large one. Therefore, when designing and building software to sell to employees or companies, developers should consider big screens as well as small ones, and not just focus on mobile-first approach. The concept of "mobile only" businesses may also be limited, as most people use multiple screens throughout the day, including TVs, which will evolve and mature to run better web-driven software. Service businesses pitching themselves as "mobile only" are likely setting themselves up for short-term success but long-term failure, as they need to track users across all screens to offer a complete service. The focus should be on Jobs, then screens, but never devices, by focusing on what Jobs users are trying to do and servicing those Jobs with the right depth of product experience suited to the situational context of use.

The article highlights the power of social media, particularly Twitter, in shaping public opinion and influencing companies' responses to customer complaints. It notes that complaining on Twitter can be an effective way for customers to get attention from companies, but it also emphasizes the importance of handling these situations professionally to avoid escalation. The article provides guidelines for companies to respond to negative feedback on Twitter, including identifying who is saying what, taking the conversation offline, not engaging with trolls, sticking to principles, and making support experiences effortless. By following these tips, companies can mitigate the risk of a "Twitter mob" forming around their brand and maintain a positive online reputation.