Do you make it this difficult for your customers?

We had a problem with our internet the other day.  As always we tried the normal, sophisticated IT solution - we turned it off and turned it on again.

Alas, nothing.

We rang the helpline and got a message saying there had been a major outage and could customers please try switching off their router and on again.  Aha - we were ahead of the curve!

So we held on for customer services.

And the first question we were asked was what the serial number of the router was.  Now I'm not sure when the last time you looked at the serial number on anything was, but trust me, it ain't easy.

The letters are ridiculously small (I know, I need bifocals but even so...) and are full of I's, 1's, O's and 0's.

So, after a lot of putting both my head and the router in very complex positions we finally managed to agree ​on the serial number.

But this got me thinking.  Certainly our internet provider isn't alone in providing equipment with hard to read, badly placed serial numbers.  And yet this always seems to be a key piece of information required when any help is sought.

So are there ​things in your business that you are making equally as hard for your customers?

​And, if so, what can you do to change things to make life easier for them?