SIMPLE

playbook

MATT LYLES
 A WORD
FROM ME,
MATT LYLES

Do you ever wonder why the top brands

are winning? It’s because they provide
customers with the one thing that most
other brands don't provide: SIMPLICITY.

How can you learn from them and create

the same experiences on a smaller
budget? The SIMPLE Playbook will help.

I'm Matt Lyles, the former FedEx brand

strategy lead - turned - professional speaker
and brand consultant. And I'm the host of the
SIMPLE brand With Matt Lyles podcast. I
spent the last few years leading a crusade of
simplicity to redefine the FedEx experience
across the globe. Now, I'm bringing that
crusade to you and your team.

Want to know what your customers value

more than anything else? Their
time. When you save them time by
helping them quickly understand your
message, when you save them time by
helping them accomplish something with
fewer steps than they expected, you’re
providing a simple experience to them.
You’re saving them time and energy by
making it easy to do business with you.

The brands that can provide that simple

experience are the ones that win.
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
- MATT
The world is The way to brand out from the

becoming
crowd is through the experience
you provide. And the top brands
have raised expectations that a
more complex. great experience is a simple one.

Think about where we are In my work and research on the

today. The world is evolving at a brands that provide a consistent,
rapid pace. And customer simple experience, I’ve identified six
expectations have never been key behaviors that create these
higher. Customers are bombarded experiences. And I’ve compiled them
with distracting messages and into the SIMPLE Playbook. You, and
experiences all day, every day. And your team members, need to instill
it’s hard for any one business to cut these behaviors in everything you do
through that clutter. to provide the simplest possible
experiences to your customers.
And as the world becomes more
complex, your customers need you Good news: you can use this
to make their lives simpler. playbook no matter the size of your
business.
It pays to bring
the simplicity.

55% 64%
Simplicity Simplicity
pays. is shared.
55% of consumers are willing 64% of consumers are more
to pay a premium price for a likely to recommend a brand
simpler experience. to others if it provides simple
experiences and
communication.

62% 679%
Simplicity Simplicity
inspires. is rewarded
62% or employees are Nope. That's totally not a
considered loyal "brand misplaced decimal point.
champions" at companies Since 2009, a portfolio of the
perceived to provide simple publicly traded simplest
experiences vs. 20% brands in Siegel+Gale's global
elsewhere. Top 10 has outperformed the
major stock indexes by 679%.

SOURCE: SIEGEL+GALE 2018-2019 SIMPLICITY INDEX

Want to lead a simplicity
crusade in your business? It
starts with these behaviors.

S Simple never stops.

I Innovate to stay ahead.

M Minimize barriers.

P Prune it back.

L Lose the jargon.

E Empathize with customers.

 “If the love of Simplicity isn’t
SIMPLE instilled into its people and
buried into its products the
NEVER concept will come and go like
STOPS HR's annual benefits meeting.“
- Ken Segall
You’ve got to adopt the mindset that Consider:
you should never stop working to
make things simple. What was
How are we demonstrating a
considered simple five years ago isn’t
commitment to continuously
really simple today. And what’s
simplify our customer experience?
simple today may not be considered
simple five years from now. 
Are there other companies that are
not our direct competitors that are
Remember when Apple launched the
providing simple capabilities and
first iPod? People were amazed that
functions that our customers
they could carry “1,000 songs in your
expect from us? How can we learn
pocket”. Six years later, Apple
from them?
introduced something even more
revolutionary. An IPod, a phone and
Do we have tools and systems in
an “internet communicator” - all in
place to constantly review and
one device. Yep, the first iPhone. In
reduce the time and effort it takes
2019 they took that same iPhone and
for our customers to work with us?
improved the camera quality to
provide the” highest quality video
A simple experience shouldn’t be
ever in a smartphone.” .Apple got
sporadic. Once we provide a simple
here by never resting and figuring out
experience in one place, how can
how to make things simpler and
we replicate that with our other
simpler.
customer experiences?

You have to take that same approach

Do we recognize and celebrate
too. Keep looking at the experience
team members when they create a
you provide customers. How can you
simple experience?
make it simpler and simpler?
INNOVATE “There’s a way to do it
better. Find it.“
TO STAY - Thomas Edison
AHEAD
You’ve got to be constantly Consider:
looking to the future. How are
your customers going to change?
What are some potential
How are their expectations going
challenges or future issues that will
to change? How will the world
cause our customers’ needs to
change, and how is that going to
evolve? What can we do to start
effect your customers? Now how
meeting those needs?
do you need to continuously
improve and innovate what you
What are other companies doing to
provide so that you can
innovate their customer
proactively meet those changes
experience? What can we learn
before your customers need it?
from them?

And innovation doesn’t have to

What manual steps in the customer
be technological innovation. It's
experience can be automated?
simply a new way to improve
your customer’s experience or a
Are we maintaining and measuring
way to meet future customers’
compliance and integrity in our
needs.
processes to ensure we’re not hit
with penalties and fines in the
future?

What’s coming in the near future

that could impact our customers’
needs and expectations? How do
we plan for that?
MINIMIZE “Your most unhappy
BARRIERS customers are your greatest
source of learning.“
- Bill Gates
A lot of your customers may Consider:
experience barriers that prevent
them from getting the most of
What are the physical, mental,
the experience you provide. And
emotional, financial or time
those barriers may not even be
barriers that prevent the
created by you. Those barriers
customer from getting the full
may come from somewhere else.
value from this experience? How
But you do have the ability to
can we alleviate those barriers
observe these barriers and figure
out what you can do to minimize
What steps in the customer
them for your customers.
experience take the most time?
Is there an opportunity to
decrease the amount of time
the customer experience takes

How many approval layers are

there to solve a customer issue?
Can we reduce these layers?

How much empowerment do

we provide our front-line team
members to make decisions
and solve customer issues?
 “Simple is very hard. Simple
PRUNE IT is the carving away of
marble until the statue of
BACK David appears.“
- Christopher Penn

I didn’t learn the value of pruning Consider:

plants until a few years ago. I always
thought that if you want your plants
How many people does the
to grow you just sit back and let
customer have to interact with
them grow. It didn’t make sense to
through the customer experience?
me to help plants grow by pruning.
How can we consolidate the
But that’s exactly what expert
number of people they have to
gardeners do. They know that the
interact with?
best way to yield maximum results
is to regularly prune it back.
How much functionality is built
into the customer experience
That’s exactly what you have to do
beyond what customers are
with your business. Instead of
actually using?
throwing more and more to your
customers, figure out what you can
What % of customer issues can be
prune back from your customer
resolved in one interaction? What
experience. If your experience
steps/actions are needed to
involves six steps for your customer,
increase that %?
can you prune it back to 3, or 2, or
even 1 step? How about the breadth
Do we offer too many options to
of products and services you offer?
our customers?
You can get to a point where you
offer too many choices to your
How many steps/actions does a
customers. And if they get
customer go through in their
overwhelmed by the choices they
experience? How can we reduce
simply walk away from them.
that number? 
 “If you confuse, you’ll lose. But
LOSE THE it doesn't have to be that way.
JARGON If you clarify your message,
customers will listen.“
- Donald Miller 

In today’s distracted economy the Consider:

average human’s attention span is 8
seconds! That’s less than the Do we use jargon, acronyms or
attention span of a goldfish! That buzzwords in our customer
means you’ve got 8 seconds to get messaging and instructions?
your message across. And you’re
only able to do that if you use clear, Is there any content or copy
concise messaging and language messaging we’re providing in the
that’s easy for your customers to customer experience that's
quickly understand. redundant or not absolutely
necessary at that given point?
We’ve all seen businesses that have
language they use on their website, Are we telling the customer
or even when they’re talking EVERYTHING they need to know all
directly to their customers, that are in one place? Or are we providing
filled with jargon and complex just what they need right now with
terms. Most of the time, when options to learn more elsewhere?
businesses use that language, they
do it to sound smart. But all that Can an 8th grader read our
complex language does is really just messaging and easily understand
confuse the customer. And when it?
you confuse, you lose. 
How can our messaging be
So take out the jargon! Replace it distilled down to one sentence or
with simple language that helps only a few key points?
your customers quickly understand
how you’re going to help solve their
problems.
 “Everyone from the CEO down
EMPATHIZE to the contact center agent
WITH should know what it feels like
to be a customer.“
CUSTOMERS - Blake Morgan

You’ve got to deliver simple Consider:

experiences that show you
understand your customers’
Do we have research showing what
needs. And the only way you’re
the customer goes through in the
going to truly understand their
customer experience? Have we not
needs is to see the world through
only asked, but have we observed
their eyes, walking a mile in their
this?
shoes, understanding what they
feel throughout their day.
Is the customer experience
designed around our needs or the
Have you heard of Chick-fil-A’s
customer’s needs?
"Mom’s Valet" service? Not one
customer ever asked for that
Are the experience steps in the
service to be created. That idea
right order?
didn’t come from a customer
focus group. It came from one
What are the top complaints we
store owner-operator in Florida
hear from customers?
who had observed how parents
struggled when they brought
Can we prove the design of this
toddlers in the restaurant. He
experience shows an
empathized with their struggle
understanding of our customers’
and figured out what was in his
needs, goals, internal and external
power to help alleviate that
challenges and struggles?
struggle.

Do we listen to, or observe, our

That's a simple behavior that any
customers’ needs before we design
business leader, or team
our customer experience?
member, can do.
 The SIMPLE Playbook
is just the beginning.

I'll help you create a

culture of simplicity
in your business.

Contact me
here

Your customers live

in a complex world.
Let's make it SIMPLE.

MATT LYLES