Product principles: read receipts

When a business releases its real-time messenger, it aims to create a natural conversation experience for customers similar to friends chatting with each other. However, the lack of a "heartbeat" in messaging led to messages feeling like they were being sent into the ether, with unclear expectations around response times. To address this, read receipts were introduced as a core feature, which provide transparency and signal that a message has been seen. The implementation differs across platforms, but the Intercom approach prioritizes clarity, design for reality, and non-optionality to ensure the value of read receipts is not lost in conversations. By adopting these principles, businesses can encourage quick, short conversational messages and change their mindset about how to talk to customers, ultimately making communications more authentic and transparent.

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