How would you make something significantly simpler for a customer?

Assumption: When we talk about making something "simpler" for a customer, I am assuming we are saying we want to reduce confusion so that a customer understands why they should use our product, and when using it, understand how to use it. That is, we are making it easy to use for them.

And similarly, when we are talking about the customer, I'm going to assume we are talking about all users of the product whether they are the person paying for it or not. I also am going to consider target customers and customers that no longer use the product but that we want to win back.

In that context, I believe you need to first understand your customers better, know how they currently interact with your product.

When and where do they use it? What knowledge or experience do they have? What emotional state or time pressure are they typically under when they usually interact with the product?

Through educating yourself of who the user is and how they use the product, it will help to understand what "simpler" means for them.

To do this I would examine any data we had that shows the type of users we have (location, age, size of their company, decision-maker or not, average spend etc.)

In addition to examining any pre-existing data we stored, I would speak to users myself. Here I would be looking to find out - why they use our product, how they use our product, and then find out about their knowledge and experience. This could be done in person over the phone or with a survey in the app/website.

After doing this, I would speak to users who have stopped using our product. Apart from obviously trying to find out why they stopped using it, I also would want to build up a profile of these users. Perhaps they are simply unaware of how our product can solve their problems. Or perhaps, we are NOT solving problems for this usertype in a way we thought we were. Are they confused by technical language we employ? Is English not their first language and as such might we decide to be more visual in our flow?

Finally, I would interact with target users who have never tried us. As well as finding out about what they want from the product, as with the other usertypes above, I'd want to better understand what things confuse them.

In addition to this, another way I would gather examples of things that confuse them in relation to our product is to look at our customer service logs (intercom, reviews in app/play store) and to speak to customer service team. If I had time, I would spend some time myself working with the customer service team dealing with customers contacting us with their problems or flagging areas of confusion.

Once we had compiled our areas of user confusion, I would collaborate with the product team to identify solutions.

Specifically, I would use the user data and apply it to parts of the customer journey to identify possible confusing elements.

Then I would prototype solutions and show these to our usertypes to see if these solutions are significantly simpler. A/B testing, usergroups would all play a role in validating our solutions as the product was developed.

Finally, to share some examples of ways we may consider to make our product simpler:

Identify examples of jargon that our users have told us confuses them, and outlaw their use.

Use icons and text descriptions instead of sentences where appropriate.

Have clear help strategy - chatbot, FAQs, explainer videos, structured onboarding for every user - give users confidence that if there is anything they do not understand they can find it our easily.

Ensure that we are employing the correct UX/UI strategy so that people can navigate our product with confidence

Continously test to ensure that we are solving our users problems in a clear way by setting KPIs that address how simple our product is. e.g. Consumer Sentiment Index, App/Play Store reviews having a certain target.

To summarise, I would make something simpler for a customer by understanding what is confusing them and make it easier to understand.