Checklist Best Practices | Intercom Help (2024)

Here are our top tips for using Intercom Checklists

Don't overwhelm customers with really long checklists, make them look manageable by using between 3-7 tasks in your checklists. If you find yourself with too many tasks, spread them across multiple checklists.

The more intent a customer has the more tasks you can get away with having, i.e. a customer who chooses to take a checklist is more likely to complete

FYI customers only see the first 4-5 tasks before they have to scroll to reveal the rest 👇

You can see below two checklist examples, the one on the left only has a title.

While the other shows a title, description and the sender.

The description and whether to show the sender are optional settings which you can choose not to use. If you only use a title you'll notice 5 tasks are now visible before the customer has to scroll to see more.

Experiment with these options and decide whether adding a sender or showing a description adds value to your checklist. This may depend on your brand and tone of voice, or the situation you're using the checklist in. If the description isn't adding vital information that you can't fit in the title or explain in the tasks, then you could decide to leave it blank.

Underestimating the time to complete will frustrate customers and lead to disengagement.

This makes setting the right expectations even more important.

So, how can you figure out how long a checklist actually takes to complete?

A good way is to take the average time from a number of completions, for example you could:

If you're estimated time is realistic but still feels a bit too long, consider spreading the tasks over two checklists instead.

Due to the limited space available in your checklist, every word matters.

Let's take a look.

Checklist titles

Keep these simple and brief, use attributes to personalize if it makes sense.

Checklist descriptions

These are optional, so if you're struggling to write copy that adds value you can just leave it blank. In the example above you'll note that the description just repeats the title without adding any new or useful information.

Task titles

Concise understandable titles are key to a good checklist. You should always try to start these with a verb. This keeps the sentence active instead of passive and makes them more interesting to read.

You should also try to use the same sentence structure and length for each of your steps. Using similar structures makes the checklist easier to read and understand.

See this in action below.

Good example:

Each task starts with a strong and clear verb.

They are all short and to the point, with no extra words.

Bad example:

'Setting' is in the present tense for no reason.

The second step is phrased as a question, which is different to all the rest.

'It's time to' is unnecessary.

The last step is okay, but 'Let' is a more passive way than starting with 'Share'.

Task descriptions

Your descriptions should add any clarifying detail that couldn't fit in the title. It's best when these are kept short, so don't be afraid to hyperlink to other content in here if needed.

Call to action text

Buttons in your checklist should be very specific and also start with a verb, keep them short and simple. They should tell the customer exactly what to expect after they click.

The following questions are useful for all content types. They will help you identify your audience and determine what steps you should add.