October 2016 Summaries

Browsers are becoming the future of mobile, with native apps slowly dying as advances in mobile web capabilities and standards make them less necessary. The average American now downloads zero apps per month, and instead spends increasing amounts of time in messaging apps and social networks that serve as wrappers for the mobile web, giving users the social context and connections they crave. Bots are emerging as a new type of dynamic bookmark for mobile web browsers, curating content for users based on their interests and behaviors, and offering actionable experiences that let them book reservations, buy goods, and read things without ever leaving their social or messaging apps. This shift means that the next generation of software companies should focus on building web apps that render well in these new wave of mobile browsers, rather than just targeting iOS or Android distribution opportunities.

You can't design a signup flow that works for every single user. Your customers don't stay the same, so neither should your onboarding. Continually assess the contexts that informed the design in the first place and be open to making changes as your customer base evolves. By doing so, you can adapt your signup flow to better meet the needs of your users and improve overall conversion rates. Understanding people's behavior with user research is key, and it's essential to onboard a whole company instead of just individual users. Showing people value as early as possible by letting them experience Intercom right away can give new users that first taste of success, keeping them coming back. Learning by experience and creating a platform that people can keep learning about your product are also crucial for a successful signup flow.

A well-structured onboarding process is crucial for product success, yet it can become increasingly complex as the organization grows. The problem arises when different teams within an organization optimize their own parts of the experience without considering how they interact with each other, resulting in a disjointed and confusing experience for customers. To overcome this, organizations must align their teams behind shared goals, enforce domain overlap to create smooth transitions, and establish clear lines of responsibility to ensure that each team works together to create an optimal customer onboarding flow. By doing so, companies can not only improve the overall onboarding experience but also drive meaningful impact on their business.

At Intercom, they've worked with hundreds of customers to help them target messages and improve their messaging schedules. The good news is that there are quick wins for anyone who's never designed a messaging schedule before. Five message types everyone benefits from include onboarding messages that welcome users, expose value, and give them a next step; engagement/lifecycle marketing that promotes features at the right time; customer development messages that personalize interactions with high-value customers; feedback check-ins to gather thoughtful insights; and retention messaging that motivates users to take action. By implementing these strategies, businesses can improve their customer communication and increase user engagement.

The text discusses the importance of running productive design critiques, which can help designers get a new perspective on their work and uncover potential issues. The author shares how Intercom conducts design critiques, including defining the goal, setting the scene, bringing the team through proposals, having productive discussions, and following up with next steps. The process involves creating a clear problem statement, presenting multiple radically different options, and guiding the conversation to focus on specific feedback. By doing so, designers can gain valuable insights and make progress in their work.

When phones become more important than people, productivity suffers. Phubbing or "phone snubbing" is when you engage with your phone in the company of others, a behavior that can take away from face-to-face interaction and lead to self-interruptions. The constant notifications and distractions from our phones can cause us to lose focus and burn through our brain's fuel faster, leading to stress and exhaustion. To break this habit, it's essential to establish a positive work culture where putting people first is paramount, and setting an example by putting away your phone during meetings and conversations. Limiting audio and visual cues from our phones can also help minimize interruptions. By putting down our phones and engaging completely, we can get the rich interaction needed to not only get our job done well but also have impact.

A well-written email is crucial for maximizing open rates, clicks, and conversions. To achieve a good open rate, one should focus on simple rules such as using personal subject lines, changing the sender to break monotony, and optimizing the timing of sending. However, reader fatigue is a reality, and it's essential to stay relevant by providing value to the reader. Click-through rates can be improved by burying links in a digest style with predictable link locations, making the links obvious, and focusing on customer interests rather than product sales. Ultimately, the key to good email writing lies in understanding the reader's needs and providing value through clear and concise communication.

The text discusses how checklists can be used to improve customer support at startups. It highlights the importance of consistency and attention to detail in handling customer interactions, citing examples from fields like medicine where checklists have proven effective in preventing errors. The article provides a 6-point checklist for improving customer service, covering essential steps such as understanding the question, knowing which products the user uses, re-reading responses, tagging conversations with categories and teams, answering or asking follow-up questions, and making customers smile by injecting positivity into the conversation. By following these checklists, support teams can focus on providing quality interactions, building robust customer relationships, and boosting overall customer satisfaction.