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Under fire for horrible customer service, Dell (DELL) is responding by say it will "simplify" its computer prices for consumers and small businesses.

Part of the strategy will include cutting back on an enormous array of mail-in rebates for its various products.

Dell is learning the hard way that a confused customer doesn't buy. The amount of and complexity of their promotions has confused and frustrated their customers. Dell's goal is to cut back the frequency of promotions 70% and for individual products by 80% in the next eighteen months.

Ro Parra, senior vice president of Dell's home and small business group says, "Through direct relationships and more than a million interactions with customers every day, it became increasingly clear that a simple pricing and sales structure would make it easier for customers."

"They told us what they wanted and we're delivering what they asked for."

Not only was the complexity connected to their customers but to their customer service workers as well. People were trained in some cases to answer a very narrow number of questions because of the complexity. The result was to do a lot of transfers which is always a negative practice to customers.

Complexity to the end-user is almost always a negative to a business. We need to always manage our offerings with simplicity and ease-of-use in mind.

But as far as Dell goes, they are still struggling in their customer communication as talked about here.