(un)Complicate – Don’t Be Fooled By Complicated Things
Have you ever had someone explain something to you, but the way they explained it was just too complicated? And no matter how they tried, it just got more confusing, not less.
Here’s some good news – it’s not your fault that it seemed complicated. It’s not uncommon for some people to try and confuse things to make you comply, or to try and make you feel less because you don’t understand. But the real reason something might seem complicated is that if someone doesn’t understand a topic well enough, then they cannot explain it simply.
Einstein Agrees
Einstein wrote: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” In other words, complicated things, products and complicated explanations are not the result of people being smarter than you – they are actually the result of people not understanding it well enough to make it as simple as it should be. Complicated things are the result of lazy thinking – things that haven’t been thought through well enough to be explained in simple terms.
And the same goes for your business, your products, and your team.
The Simple Truth About Complicated Things
It might seem like a paradox then, that in making things simple it actually takes more work, more thinking, and more intelligence initially. You have to do the thinking on where to reduce steps, where to perform steps more concisely, or how to get the outcome more quickly and efficiently.
And that is the kind of thinking that most people either don’t know how to do, or worse, can’t be bothered doing. After all, how many times have you been forced to do something at work in a more complicated way than it should be, or forced to jump through more hoops in getting a product from a company than you needed to? And it wasn’t because it had to be done that way – many times it was simply because it had always been done that way, and the complicated way became the default over time.
The good news is that The Lean CX Score offers you a repeatable framework for making things simple – the opposite of complicated – (un)Complicated. You can improve your work, your business and your products, and improve the opportunity for customers to buy from you as a result, using a simple, step-by-step method.
(un)Complicating Things Also Improves Sales Significantly
Every time a process is more complicated than it should be, and your customer is forced to go through it, you are increasing the chance that they will leave you.
“Breakpoints” are those places in your customer experience where a customer will leave, never to return. The Lean CX Score outlines five of the most common customer breakpoints, and how to solve them. Here are some examples:
By having too many steps in the customer experience – every extra step is another “breakpoint”, that could be a prompt for a customer to leave.
By having too many hand-offs in the customer experience – every extra hand-off is a breakpoint that is an opportunity for a customer to leave.
By making a customer redo things more than once – every extra time they have to redo it is a breakpoint that will frustrate a customer to the point of leaving, and;
By making customers wait too long for something – every minute longer is another reason for a customer to break up with you and leave.
(un)Complicating Things Also Reduces Costs Significantly
Let’s think about simplicity from a cost perspective. By reducing steps in your customer experience you are reducing the work to be done to get the customer what they wanted. By reducing the work to be done you are reducing the cost of the work. By reducing the cost of the work you are improving the profit of your business.
It’s the same principle whether you’re thinking about your supply chain in business, or your value chain in delivering goods and services, or the processes you go through to get the outcomes you want. Every time you reduce steps, reduce hand-offs, reduce waiting and any other Lean CX Waste, you are giving yourself the opportunity to get ahead.
You Don’t Have To Start From Scratch
If you’re ready to (un)complicate your business and your products, and put in the initial thinking required to make things more simple, the good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch.
The Lean CX Score provides you with the exact, step-by-step framework you need to (un)complicate and start seeing the success you deserve. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you get a copy.
Oh and good news! You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time. Get the Lean CX Score now.