I got a letter in the mail from my internet service provider last week. Inside it was my bill.
Also inside it was a tri-fold brochure called “Understanding Your Bill.” I noticed two strange things about this. First, their bill is so complicated that they have to send me a brochure explaining how to understand it. Second, the brochure intended to make my bill easier to understand, was, itself, hard to understand.
So instead of making the process easier and more streamlined, they just made my life more complicated by forcing me to read more information to help to decipher the already-cryptic bills I get each month. And those instructions were actually worse than no instructions at all.
I threw it away. What’s the point? If you’re going to make a bill easy to understand, do it. Use fewer words. Group items. Use charts or graphs to help people visualize their usage. Now that would help me to understand what’s really going with my bill, and where all the ridiculous fees I’m paying each month go for.