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Customers Don't Care About Your Complexity

Volume 1

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Business, Opinion, Sorcery

Writer: Ross A. McIntyre

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Art Direction: Christian Garavito

Your customers may already benefit from a great user experience. They may be pleased with the functionality and the gains in efficiency it provides. They might even reward you with an overwhelmingly positive Net Promoter Score (NPS). Everything about your customer experience (CX) might be top-notch.

But there is one thing that customers rarely care about: complexity.

Customers are not interested in the complexity that lies behind-the-scenes, nor are they interested in how challenging it was to deliver the right experience. Whether it's deliberate ignorance or simple dismissiveness, most customers only consider the end result or the benefits that a solution provides without considering the underlying technology, orchestration, or processes.

They want what they want and that is not easy to provide: magic.

Customers are not interested in the complexity that lies behind the scenes.

Going Postal

Take the United States Postal Service (USPS) — a large and complex organization that handles millions of mail pieces and packages every day, across the country and internationally. The USPS relies on a vast network of processing and distribution centers, transportation systems, and retail locations. They leverage more than 31,000 post offices, 600,000 workers, and a fleet of over 200,000 vehicles. They must contend with different pricing structures, regulations, processing requirements, and political and economic factors that affect operations and funding. There are few organizations that can boast in-person, hyper-local interactions with millions of customers every day.

When was the last time you considered the web of complex (and oftentimes complicated) logistical considerations the organization faces every day? For many readers, this may never have been considered at all. We all just expect the mail to show up at our home with clockwork regularity.

There are few organizations that can boast in-person, hyper-local interactions with millions of customers every day.

Communication Breakdown

CSPs (or “telcos”) have similar problems; they are broad, Byzantine in structure, and critically important in delivery of services such as voice, data, and broadband Internet. Problems in that delivery may stem from issues terrestrial or orbital and the infrastructure required to support seamlessness is tremendously complex. And, just like the Postal Service, the slightest change in regulatory or technological factors can provoke the industry's own unique challenges.

In fact, there are few industries that produce irate customers at the scale of a telco and that is because their services are critical to communicating, receiving information, and remote productivity. The only time the complexities might be considered is when something goes awry.

The expectation is simple: magic.

The Show Must Go On

One of the first lessons in magic stagecraft is on misdirection— manipulating attention and perception. By drawing audience attention to one area or object, while simultaneously concealing or manipulating another area or object, magicians and prestidigitators can create the illusion of impossibility.

Digital experiences function in much the same manner— ease-of-use, simplicity, elegance of experience— draw attention away from complexity. How can you ensure that your digital experiences belie underlying complexity?

  • Be customer-centric in your design process. Make sure that what the user needs to do is simple and direct. Offer efficiency gains through use.
  • Progressively disclose information so that your users are never overwhelmed with options or unnecessary cognitive load.
  • Leverage narrative and storytelling to engage the customer and draw attention to the result rather than the process.
  • Automate, automate, automate.
  • Create wonder and awe whilst concealing the technological voodoo required.

And if your CX isn't that buttoned up and you are not entirely confident in your digital misdirection, we should talk.

Because, just like any performance, you always want to leave your audience wanting more.