---
title: "How to Educate & Persuade Customers - The Intercom Blog"
description: "The post presents a framework for product messaging that categorizes user tasks by ease of execution and user desire, using a quadrant to determine whether to educate, persuade, or nudge. Tasks that are desirable but daunting require education to simplify the concept, while easy but low-value tasks need persuasion to highlight benefits, and tasks in between may only need a nudge. The author warns against simplifying tasks users do not want, citing failed startups, and references Ev Williams’ formula of removing steps from long-standing human desires. The post also discusses the cost-benefit trade-off in user decisions, distinguishing honest growth hacks that alter the trade-off from dishonest ones that deceive users or move goalposts. It advises against building a business around complex unwanted tasks and notes that Intercom itself uses this approach by teaching customers about drip-feed marketing."
---

# How to Educate & Persuade Customers - The Intercom Blog

[Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom) · Oct 13, 2026

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

The post presents a framework for product messaging that categorizes user tasks by ease of execution and user desire, using a quadrant to determine whether to educate, persuade, or nudge. Tasks that are desirable but daunting require education to simplify the concept, while easy but low-value tasks need persuasion to highlight benefits, and tasks in between may only need a nudge. The author warns against simplifying tasks users do not want, citing failed startups, and references Ev Williams’ formula of removing steps from long-standing human desires. The post also discusses the cost-benefit trade-off in user decisions, distinguishing honest growth hacks that alter the trade-off from dishonest ones that deceive users or move goalposts. It advises against building a business around complex unwanted tasks and notes that Intercom itself uses this approach by teaching customers about drip-feed marketing.

## Context

Intercom observed that effective customer messages either educate or persuade, leading to a framework for deciding which approach to use based on task ease and desirability.

## Approach / What changed

Plot user tasks on a quadrant of ease versus desire; for desirable but difficult tasks use education to simplify, for easy but low-desire tasks use persuasion to highlight benefits, and for tasks in between use a nudge. Avoid simplifying tasks users do not want to do.

## Takeaways

- The quadrant framework: tasks that are desirable but daunting require education; easy but low-value tasks require persuasion; tasks in between may only need a nudge.
- Ev Williams’ formula for billion-dollar companies: take a long-standing human desire and use modern technology to remove steps.
- Honest growth hacks alter the cost-benefit trade-off by decreasing cost or enhancing perceived benefit; dishonest ones deceive users or move goalposts.

## FAQ

### When should I educate vs persuade customers?

Educate when the task is desirable but daunting, to make it seem simple. Persuade when the task is easy but low-value, to highlight benefits. For tasks in between, a simple nudge may suffice.

### What is the bottom-left quadrant and how should I handle it?

The bottom-left quadrant contains tasks that are complex and unwanted. The post advises against building a business that relies on such tasks, and brute force is the only way to get them done.

### What are dishonest growth hacks?

Dishonest growth hacks deceive users by spamming their address book or auto-tweeting without telling them, or move goalposts like forcing sign-up to watch a demo, which only inflates vanity metrics.

**Tags:** [Customer Engagement](https://yomu.fyi/topic/customer-engagement), [Messaging](https://yomu.fyi/topic/messaging), [Product Design](https://yomu.fyi/topic/product-design)

- Source: [Intercom](https://www.intercom.com/blog/how-to-educate-persuade-customers)
- Source URL: https://www.intercom.com/blog/how-to-educate-persuade-customers
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-13T18:00:39.132Z

[Read original post](https://www.intercom.com/blog/how-to-educate-persuade-customers)