Service Provider Hyperbole

Something that has been on my mind as of late, and on the minds of OWN senior management, is the level of difficulty required to obtain our services. Here are the polar issues involved:

Our stuff is too difficult to setup!

Problem & Solution: Alrighty then, let’s simplify it and make it easier than Gmail to get into. Design the UI, run it past the retards and see if even they can get through it without impaling themselves on large words.

Effect: Support loads explode because lowering the bar brings in the people that are incapable of reading and solving kindergarten-difficulty puzzles.

We need this advanced feature, now!

Problem & Solution: We expose a more sophisticated control set and a complicated feature.

Effect: Clients complain that it takes too much effort to get something together and that it’s too complex.

The Reality

I spend half my day trying to simplify the things that we do so that we don’t get the same type of negative feedback, but the vendors we work with create impossible hoops and requirements for us to achieve so I get to feel the kind of sentiment my clients get.

But here is the bottom line…

The bar is there for a reason. It’s there to keep people who are not ready for the complex solutions from being able to hurt themselves with it. If you’re complaining, the bar is not the problem: Your inability to get above it is. We all may bitch and moan about the limitations that are put in place on the iPhone, but wast majority of people will not jailbreak their handset to enable advanced functionality.

At the end of the day you have to know your place. And if you’re not happy with it, it’s up to you to step up. Nobody will lower the bar for you.