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Keeping Your
Offerings Easy to Use (Part 1)
by Adele Sommers
What’s the
real formula for customer happiness? First, let’s
review what we know about customer unhappiness.
We know that consumers
expect our offerings to work exactly as advertised.
Yet our products and services can introduce complex
requirements — even burdens — of their own.
Those extra requirements
can quickly morph into “customer hassles”
— the kinds of aggravations that make consumers
feel mildly annoyed all the way to really angry or stupid.
And unless they’re very unhappy,
customers often leave quietly, without telling us why.
They simply vote with their wallets, taking their business
elsewhere.
In contrast,
to compete successfully today, we need to do just the
opposite. We need to create “raving fans”
— people who can’t stop telling their friends,
family, and colleagues just how wonderful our products
and services are. How should we go about doing this?
 Without
easy-to-use products and services, it’s hard to
attract raving fans. This article, the first in a series,
takes a look at two of the factors — simplicity
and built-in guidance — that contribute greatly
to customer satisfaction.
Can We Go Down
the Up Escalator?
You may have heard
results from marketing surveys in which consumers are
asking for simpler products with fewer features and
shorter learning curves. Even if you haven’t been
aware this particular trend, ask yourself — do
I need more complicated appliances? Or
even one more feature on my telephone?
A recent article
in US News and World Report on taming
technology bemoaned the fact that the same electronic
gizmos we depend on daily are often the source of our
frustrations. Gadgets are smaller and cost less, but
they don't necessarily work the way we want them to.
Why? They’re much too complicated!
Ironically, the
more manufacturers feel compelled to add frilly, complex
features, the more consumers feel compelled to buy them.
The antidote, the article goes on to say, is returning
to basics by striving for ease of use and dependability.
Similarly, if we all avoid the temptation to heap on
fancy features and functions in our offerings, we’ll
have a much better chance of keeping customers loyal,
happy, and returning for more.
Example 1: Simplicity
Lost
Enter a telling
story about a hypothetical company called Word Style
Leader (or WSL for short). WSL’s troubles followed
an all-too-familiar pattern. For nine years, it successfully
made software that customers bought in droves. During
that blissful time, WSL’s products reflected simple,
clean features and interfaces. WSL did not
push frilly functionality, but instead offered steady,
incremental improvements that were consistent in appearance
and easy for customers to master.
 But
because of that success, WSL accelerated the pace of
adding enhancements and options to its star product
to stay ahead of the competition. One day, though, this
strategy began to backfire. After a certain point, WSL’s
software had become too tricky — too complex
for the average consumer to use. Its latest Internet-savvy
upgrade was whizzy; however, the interface was now jumbled
with far too many confusing choices. Even existing customers
couldn’t recognize familiar tasks.
Business declined.
Yet WSL stayed oblivious to the symptoms and their causes.
Why was that? It didn’t probe its own customer
satisfaction, conduct marketing surveys, or study consumer
trends.
Unfortunately, like
many companies, WSL remained committed to a mistaken
belief that perpetually adding deluxe features would
increase customer happiness as well as revenue. Consequently,
no one at WSL ever figured out the bottom-line truth:
Its own customer preferences echoed the simpler tastes
revealed by recent consumer studies. In its customers’
eyes, less was unquestionably more.
Example 2: Popularity
Gained
Wherever simplification
leaves off, built-in guidance can help make the
remaining tasks a breeze. In a software product, for
example, such guidance can come in the form of tightly
interwoven tips and hints, overviews, demonstrations,
wizards, and other systematic interactions that intelligently
aid people in achieving their goals.
 An
excellent example of customer guidance lives in a certain
popular U.S. income tax preparation software package.
Its step-by-step process leads users through
a series of queries that helps them perform each task
correctly, even if they don’t know the first thing
about the US tax code. Systems like this can greatly
reduce or eliminate customer training and often avoid
the need for professional tax assistance. It’s
no wonder that consumers rave about this product!
So, What Should
We Aim For?
Below are four things
to consider with regard to ease of use in your offerings:
1. Are your products
or services designed as simply as possible?
Have you researched
what customers truly want and need, resisting the pressure
or temptation to overload your offerings with “too
much stuff”? Have the interfaces been developed
and tested with ease of use in mind?
 2.
Do your offerings support your customers’ main
objectives?
Assuming that you’ve
removed hassles and annoying busywork from your offerings,
does what remains help support your customers’
real-life needs — the things people were trying
to accomplish before they ever turned to your wares
for help? Do customers receive just-in-time assistance
on completing each step?
3. Can customers
explore deeper features when they’re ready?
Can they expose
additional layers of information, such as tutorials,
at their discretion? Are the tutorials directly linked
to the tasks at hand?
4. Is every element
of the system compatible and complete?
Will customers see
the same terminology, consistent features and naming
conventions, and predictable behavior throughout the
system?
In conclusion,
keeping your offerings simple and consistent, while
simultaneously supporting whatever people are really
trying to accomplish, should lead to years of customer
gratitude and loyalty.
Copyright 2006 Adele Sommers
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The
power of intention is a magical force about which
many wise people, including Napoleon Hill (author
of “Think and Grow Rich”), have written.
But are you aware of how to use this power in your
everyday activities?
My
business banking institution, 
