The Trouble With Telling Customers Everything (And Nothing)

How much information is too much, and is saying less always better?

There's an interesting contradiction in the way businesses communicate with their customers. On one hand, we're encouraged to keep things simple. Strip away the unnecessary detail, make everything easy to understand and, wherever possible, say more with less. On the other, we're told that informed customers are confident customers, that transparency builds trust and that unanswered questions create barriers to buying.

Both arguments make perfect sense. Which is slightly inconvenient when you're trying to decide what to put on your website.

I've spent a fair amount of time recently looking at businesses from the perspective of someone who might actually want to buy something from them. Not as a marketer analysing their choice of font or wondering whether their brand colours are sufficiently aspirational, but as an ordinary customer with a fairly ordinary intention. I want to book a table, arrange an experience, enquire about a service or find somewhere lovely to stay.

And it's fascinating how differently businesses approach the job of helping me do that.

Some want to tell me absolutely everything. Others seem determined to tell me as little as humanly possible. Both approaches can work beautifully. Both can also leave me staring at my screen wondering whether anyone involved has ever tried using the website as an actual customer.

So, which is better?

Well, that's where it gets interesting.

In defence of telling people everything

Let's start with the businesses that believe more information is better.

And before anyone starts sharpening their red pen, there's a perfectly good argument for this approach.

If I'm considering spending a substantial amount of money, booking something unfamiliar or committing to a service I don't fully understand, I want information. Quite a lot of it, actually. I want to know what's included, what's optional, how the process works, what happens if my circumstances change and whether there are any unpleasant surprises lurking further down the line.

Imagine booking a wedding venue. Beautiful photographs and a paragraph about creating unforgettable memories might catch my attention, but eventually I'm going to have some fairly practical questions. How many people can come? Can we bring our own suppliers? Is accommodation available? What happens if it rains? And, at some point, we're probably going to have to discuss money.

The answers matter. Not because I'm particularly difficult, but because I'm considering making a significant decision.

There's also something reassuring about a business that has anticipated those questions. It suggests experience, understanding and a willingness to be upfront. Rather than making me send an enquiry just to establish whether we're remotely compatible, they've given me enough information to make an informed choice.

For customers who like to research before speaking to another human being, that can be enormously valuable.

And let's not forget that a lack of information doesn't automatically create curiosity. Sometimes it just creates suspicion.

If I have to enquire to discover the most basic details of what you're offering, I might wonder whether there's a reason you don't want to tell me.

Or, more likely, I'll simply look somewhere else.

In defence of keeping things simple

Now let's give the other side a fair hearing.

Because there are occasions when businesses provide so much information that finding the answer to a perfectly straightforward question becomes an endurance event.

You arrive on a website wanting to book something, and suddenly you're reading about the founder's childhood, the company's commitment to excellence, seventeen different service variations and an explanation of the methodology behind something you didn't realise required a methodology.

Somewhere in there is probably the information you need. You just haven't found it yet.

This is particularly common when businesses have grown organically. They've added new services, introduced different packages, expanded their offering and carefully documented every development along the way. Nothing has necessarily been removed because, well, it might still be useful to somebody.

Eventually, the website becomes a rather impressive collection of everything the business knows about itself.

Unfortunately, knowing everything about a business isn't necessarily what the customer came for.

Sometimes I don't need a comprehensive education. I need to know whether you can do the thing I want, whether it's suitable for me and what I should do next.

A restaurant is a good example. If I'm looking for somewhere to have Sunday lunch, I probably want to see the menu, understand the atmosphere, check the location and book a table. I don't necessarily need an extensive exploration of your culinary philosophy before I'm allowed anywhere near the roast beef.

There is genuine skill in making something feel effortless. In deciding what matters most, giving it prominence and allowing the customer to move forward without having to do all the sorting and interpreting themselves.

Simplicity isn't necessarily a lack of substance. Done well, it's evidence that someone has thought carefully about what the customer needs.

Which sounds rather convincing, doesn't it?

Until we take simplicity a little too far.

When less becomes not quite enough

We've all encountered the beautifully minimal website. Gorgeous photography, elegant typography, lots of breathing room and a handful of carefully chosen words.

Discover. Experience. Escape.

Lovely.

Discover what, exactly?

I'm not suggesting every website needs to resemble an instruction manual, but there's a point at which restraint stops feeling sophisticated and starts feeling unhelpful.

A business might know exactly what makes its offering special. The owner understands the experience, the team knows what happens behind the scenes, and existing customers may be perfectly familiar with how everything works.

But someone arriving for the first time doesn't have any of that knowledge.

They might not know what the service involves, who it's designed for, what makes it different or even whether it's something they can actually book.

And when those answers are missing, the customer has to fill in the gaps.

Sometimes they'll make assumptions. Sometimes they'll send an enquiry. Sometimes they'll decide it probably isn't for them, even when it might have been absolutely perfect.

That's a particularly frustrating outcome because the business hasn't necessarily failed to offer something valuable. It's failed to communicate that value clearly enough for someone to recognise it.

The opposite problem is just as real. When every possible detail is presented with equal importance, the customer is still left doing the work. They're simply trying to find the relevant information rather than trying to work out what the business actually does.

Different approaches. Surprisingly similar result.

The customer doesn't stay in the same place

Here's another complication.

What a customer needs to know changes as they move towards making a decision.

At the beginning, I might simply want to understand what you offer and whether it appeals to me. I don't need every detail. In fact, too much detail at that stage might distract me from the very thing that would have made me interested.

But once I'm interested, my questions change.

Now I want to understand the options, the practicalities and the cost. I might want reassurance, examples or a clearer explanation of how things work. Information that would have felt excessive five minutes earlier suddenly becomes rather important.

And when I'm ready to buy, I don't necessarily want another beautifully written paragraph about your passion for what you do.

I want the bloody booking button.

That's why the argument about more information versus less information is probably the wrong argument in the first place.

The issue isn't simply how much information exists. It's whether people can find what they need when they need it, and whether the business has made the next step clear.

A website can be rich in detail without overwhelming its visitors. It can be beautifully simple without withholding important answers. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

But achieving that balance requires something that can be surprisingly difficult when you're immersed in running a business.

You have to stop looking at it from your own side of the counter.

The problem with knowing your own business too well

One of the peculiar things about expertise is that it can make ordinary questions harder to recognise.

When you've spent years working in an industry, certain things become second nature. You understand the terminology, the processes, the differences between your services and the reasons customers choose one option over another.

You might genuinely struggle to imagine how any of it could be confusing.

But your customers haven't spent the last fifteen years inside your business.

They don't necessarily know what you know, and they certainly don't know which bits of that knowledge they're supposed to need.

This is where businesses can fall into either camp.

Some try to solve the problem by explaining everything, just in case. Others assume the important things are obvious and barely explain anything at all.

Neither approach is particularly unreasonable from the business owner's perspective.

The trouble is that customers aren't making decisions from the business owner's perspective.

They're making them from their own, armed with whatever information, experience, expectations and assumptions they've brought with them.

And they're usually trying to achieve something fairly specific.

That difference matters.

So, how much information is too much?

I don't think there's a universal answer.

An unfamiliar service might need careful explanation. A familiar product might need very little. A significant financial commitment probably requires more reassurance than an impulse purchase. Some customers enjoy researching every detail; others would rather speak to someone who can guide them.

Even the same customer can want different amounts of information at different moments.

What matters is whether the communication helps them make progress.

Does it answer the questions they're likely to have? Does it give them a reason to care? Does it help them understand their options? Does it make the next step feel straightforward?

And perhaps most importantly, does it make sense to someone who doesn't already know the business inside out?

There's a temptation to treat communication as a question of quantity. Cut the copy. Add more detail. Simplify the message. Explain the process.

But none of those decisions means very much without understanding what the customer is actually trying to do.

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is remove three paragraphs.

Sometimes it's to add one.

And sometimes it's to stop rearranging the words altogether and ask why the person reading them still can't work out how to become your customer.

Because the objective was never to tell people everything.

Nor was it to tell them as little as possible.

It was to help them understand enough to take the next step.

And that, I suspect, is considerably harder than choosing between more words and fewer ones.