{"id":15158,"date":"2018-04-25T17:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.intercom.com\/?p=15158"},"modified":"2020-07-30T12:56:59","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T11:56:59","slug":"product-thinking-behind-messenger-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/product-thinking-behind-messenger-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Product thinking: behind our new Messenger home screen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday marked one of our biggest releases yet \u2013 our all new messenger<\/a>. One of the most exciting concepts is the customizable home screen, the start screen you see when you open the Intercom Messenger on an app or website.<\/p>\n

Think of it as the perfect front desk for your company. Using apps, you can create tailored experiences for leads and customers when they open the Messenger. Because these interactions can happen outside of a conversation, it fundamentally changes what a business messenger is all about.<\/p>\n

This is one of the biggest bets we\u2019re making for our new Messenger, but the reality is that it came from quite modest beginnings.<\/p>\n

How we gave our Messenger a home<\/h2>\n

So where did the idea for a Messenger home come from? Before this, we’d invested a lot of time in features like article suggestions<\/a>. Powered by our knowledge base product<\/a>, it suggested articles to people after they typed a message. It worked well, but we started to ask ourselves: what if we could get people to check out the knowledge base<\/a> before<\/em> typing a message? And when we introduced a modest little link just above the conversation area, we actually saw great traction.<\/p>\n

\"Intercom<\/p>\n

This made sense for first-time use, but it conceptually broke the next time the user came back to use that link. They had to click \u201cStart a conversation\u201d to find this link to self-service \u2013 it was almost contradictory. We realized we needed to find room to solve problems in the Messenger outside<\/em> the realm of conversations \u2013 before a question was asked at all.<\/p>\n

We were on slightly shaky ground, though, because this wasn\u2019t something our customers were directly asking us for. And there\u2019s nothing worse than solving a problem no one cares about, particularly if it\u2019s such a fundamental change.<\/p>\n

What gave us confidence was that we saw evidence of our customers building their own solutions to add more to a business messenger. Here\u2019s what CharlieHR<\/a> and Zeplin<\/a> cooked up:<\/p>\n

\"Intercom<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s what Monzo<\/a> now use in their mobile app:<\/p>\n

\"Intercom<\/p>\n

So we did think we were scratching at something useful.<\/p>\n

When thinking through potential solutions, we first thought about just adding a button beside our Messenger launcher, which would just open a mini version of the Help Center. That would keep the Messenger strictly about messages and conversations \u2013 which is all it should be about. Or so we thought.<\/p>\n

\"Intercom<\/p>\n

But multiple windows felt clunky and cumbersome. We were retaining the simplicity of the Messenger, but at the expense of adding bloat right beside it.<\/p>\n

Instead of separating the Help Center, we wanted to fully embed the whole article search experience inside the Messenger. We wanted to transform our Messenger to be a natural home for self-service, as well as other things we hadn\u2019t imagined yet. We explored many options, but this was the most compelling:<\/p>\n

\"Intercom<\/p>\n

We wanted to shrink our Help Center to a lightweight app and create a new place in the Messenger that could house the app.<\/p>\n

At the same time, our Messenger team had just started work on an extensibility project. This was a framework to allow Messenger apps to be sent in conversations. It would solve problems for things teammates typically do in conversations, like booking sales meetings or having video calls, but help them do them faster. So at first, apps were seen as things that would only live in conversations. Then we realized that framework could easily be extended to allow apps to live outside conversations.<\/p>\n

Imagine, we excitedly said to ourselves, not just searching for help content, but booking demos, offering newsletter subscriptions and offers \u2013 all things you can do without needing to start a conversation. Through total serendipity, we realized the Messenger app framework and our new Messenger home idea were perfect partners.<\/p>\n

The two ideas were magnetic in their attraction. Once we stuck them together we couldn\u2019t pull them apart. Now we knew we had the foundation for our new Messenger.<\/p>\n

Customization is no longer about just how it looks, but what it does<\/h2>\n

One recurring theme of feedback we get from our customers is: \u201cWe want to own more of the look and feel of the Messenger.\u201d And this update to the Messenger takes a few steps forward on that front. Now customers can add their company logo, customize the greeting and add secondary colors to better match their brand.<\/p>\n

These are iterative improvements to visual customization. But the transformative step is that, with apps on Messenger home, businesses can customize what purpose the Messenger has for them. They can tailor the Messenger to the actions they want their visitors or users to take. Let\u2019s look at some examples.<\/p>\n

Example 1: Messenger home focused on sales and marketing<\/h3>\n

\"Intercom
\nFor your visitors, you may want to tailor your Messenger home to capturing leads and moving your potential customers through the funnel.<\/p>\n