699 WORDS | READ TIME: 3 MIN | CHANGE FLAG: MASTERY

Interruptions are only annoying if they're interruptions

When you walk into a store and a saleslady sidles over and asks how she can help, what's your reaction?

Well, it depends.

If you're shopping for your niece's birthday and you have no idea what's trending in the world of teeny-bopper-dom, you thank Saleslady and let her show you the selection of custom phone lanyards.

But if you know the exact shade of chartreuse that Niece wants, plus exactly where the store displays the lanyards, you don't appreciate the question. In fact, Saleslady might even be in your way.

Does being a marketer give license to be annoying?

Nielsen Norman Group ran a Most Hated Online Ads study, ranking ad types by dislike – once in 2004 and once in 2017.

Both studies, thirteen years apart, ranked pop ups as most hated.

Yet, we still use them.

More importantly, despite users "hating" them, they still convert incredibly well.

So.

Are we just a bunch of annoying, sleazy marketers who do whatever it takes to get the conversion – whether or not it's appreciated?

Or is this just another case where the customer isn't right? Where they say one thing and do another?

Or... is it something entirely different?

Reduce irrelevance, not interruption

Back to Saleslady and your quest to win the title of Best Aunt/Uncle.

Saleslady isn't inherently annoying, nor is she inherently appreciated. Where her approach lands depends on whether you need help.

So when a team I'm working with – or a podcast guest I'm interviewing – questions the use of an in-app pop up, the answer isn't to just carte blanche avoid pop ups. The answer is to use them very specifically. Not even sparingly. Just specifically.

Because while one pop up will be annoying for one user, it'll be extraordinarily appreciated for another. And a different pop up will be appreciated for that first user, and annoying for that second one.

When a user doesn't need help, a pop up is in the way. When a user does need help, then perfectly relevant, perfectly placed guidance is... perfect.

But wait: relevance doesn’t just cost less, it also earns more

Simple, yet, somehow still resisted.

So let me show you how embracing this relevance idea can actually take you much farther than being "standard" helpful.

When you're relevant – and when you ignore the voices of "this pop up will annoy my users, let's make it as unintrusive as possible" – you can go so much deeper.

You knock the helpfulness gauge way up.

Back to Saleslady and Niece again.

Let's say you don't know what to get and would appreciate "what's trending" advice. Saleslady is helpful.

Let's say Saleslady isn't just well versed in teeny-bopper-dom, but is a senior at Niece's school and knows exactly which lanyard beads are trending with the 6th grade queen bees. Saleslady is really helpful.

Now let's say Saleslady is also Niece's older sister and knows exactly what colors and shapes Niece loves. Now she's really really helpful.

Guidance is helpful. Gamification is really helpful. Peer pressure is really really helpful.

We started the experiment of Episode 3 of Churn Flags by dropping a tool tip into the Storylane dashboard. A user needed help, we gave them some help. But the minute we hit on the question of relevance – wait, does this tooltip belong here – the tooltip became two tooltips. Became an AI review. Became a gamified AI review. Became a proven, gamified AI review.

What started as an "interruption" became a completely overhauled workflow that better serves the customer who needed help.

They came in asking for technical building help. They walked out with a better build.

Stop asking if you can interrupt. Start asking if they need help.

When you know you're not being annoying – better, when you know you're being truly useful – you can go deeper, design better, and focus on outcomes.

The default advice is to tiptoe around customer communication. Send fewer emails. Nudge less. Drop the modals. Just get out of the way.

Well, actually, yes, we should get out of the way.

But we should absolutely not stop helping them get on their way.

In the episode (listen here)

03:52 Why our featured customer churned, despite Storylane's impressive G2 review workflow

08:53 What it looks like to dig underneath a customer's complaint – to give them the outcome they're really looking for

13:28 Why tool tip real estate isn't actually something to worry about

16:12 How to improve your customer's outputs when they think they know better

21:45 The distinction that turns "make your customer the hero" into a referral machine

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