I don’t know about you, but anytime I download an app, there’s a small bit of dread in the pit of my stomach as I know, at some point, that action will turn into interruption, in the form of a push notification I never asked for.
App makers and marketers have gotten so homogeneous in their approach to sign ups that it’s as true as the law of gravity that we’ll get unsolicited messages soon after we do anything to engage with a brand.
And to me, that’s a little frustrating. The maker’s assumption is if you downloaded the app, you must want 12 push notifications a day to keep your eyes in their systems. Surely that serves the customer!
Certainly a huge chunk of users must just accept this as fact and happily live in a storm of notifications. But it makes companies’ “customer focused” missions ring so hollow.
In a way it’s unfortunate that my default action when downloading any new application is to turn off push notifications. I don’t even give the app a chance to prove me wrong – I’m so conditioned to avoid them. And yet there are probably plenty of use cases where a push notification is incredibly useful. Even powerful.
But app makers interpret the absence of an opt out to indicate a user wants the full force attack of push notifications at all times. Why isn’t anyone trying a more nuanced, phased roll in of push notifications. Why isn’t it opt in, instead of opt out?
These are of course all rhetorical questions. But it’s an interesting thought experiment to consider the alternative of app makers focusing on getting you in the door and doing whatever they can to keep you from uninstalling. One where companies must continue to deliver value to earn and expand the user’s attention. One where companies take nothing for granted.