Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to promote the new Outlook, and has now even introduced a “reward points” mechanism to encourage Windows 11 users to switch to the new Outlook. After the update, users will see a brand-new rewards icon in the Outlook title bar; clicking it lets them view and claim available Microsoft Rewards points.
To encourage users to try the new Outlook on Windows 11, Microsoft has begun awarding reward points through small tasks.
This feature is called “Explore Outlook,” and Microsoft says it will regularly introduce various tasks to guide users through the features and services of the new Outlook. Surprisingly, most of these tasks are quite simple and take almost no time at all. For example, the “Out of Office, Someone’s Covering” task only opens the automatic reply settings page, and the system immediately marks the task as complete; even if the user has not enabled automatic replies at all, they can still earn points. Microsoft believes this feature can help colleagues and contacts stay informed while the user is on vacation, so it hopes to increase usage through it.
Another task called “Say Goodbye to a Noisy Inbox” is more intriguing. After clicking it, the system simply opens the Microsoft 365 subscription plans page and encourages users to upgrade to a paid service. Even if users are already subscribers, they can still complete the task and claim the reward by opening that page. As for the third task, “Make Every Day a Little Smoother,” it guides users to search Bing for content related to “improving Outlook efficiency.” As long as they open the search results, points are automatically credited.
In other words, completing these three tasks requires almost no extra effort, making it easy to earn 30 reward points. Microsoft also updates three new tasks every day, mostly focused on tutorials and usage scenarios for the new Outlook’s features. However, if you rarely use Outlook, the rewards you can earn may be relatively limited. But can points really be the key to persuading users to switch platforms? In fact, the new Outlook is not a bad product, but it may not be suitable for everyone. For users who value performance, native integration experience, or want to avoid ad interference, classic Outlook still has certain advantages, especially without a Microsoft 365 subscription.
In enterprise environments, many users even consider the new Outlook a step backward. The reason is that classic Outlook still retains several key features, such as full support for PST files and a more mature local caching mechanism. The new Outlook is centered on cloud services, and some traditional features have not yet been fully ported over, making it difficult for enterprise users to fully replace the old version. Recently, Microsoft has even continued to enhance classic Outlook, for example by developing a faster search system, so that users can obtain results using Windows local search even when the network environment is poor. Although the new Outlook will also introduce similar capabilities in the future, classic Outlook users can already benefit first.
Therefore, Microsoft’s current use of Rewards points to entice users to try the new Outlook also reflects, to some extent, that it is still working to overcome controversies over features and experience. As for whether these small rewards are enough to make users overlook the current shortcomings of the new Outlook, that likely remains to be verified by the market.
Source: KOCPC Chinese