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LG U+ has adopted Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a common language of management and is pursuing its “Simply. U+” brand campaign to reduce complexity in the telecommunications experience. The aim is to move away from push-based competition that relies on subsidies and promotions to attract more customers and build pull-based competitiveness that draws customers in on their own through an easy user experience and recommendations. At the center of this effort is “Simple. Lab,” a customer participation platform. It is a co-creation system that asks customers for ideas to improve products and services, brings together teams across product planning, development, marketing and UX to review and incorporate those ideas, and carefully provides customers with feedback on the process and results. Since its launch in October 2025, it has received more than 14,000 customer ideas as of early September and improved 12 products and services. LG U+ shares the purpose, process and results through various forms of content on its owned media, keeping the dialogue with customers going. It represents an innovation in market orientation that encompasses intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination across departments and responsiveness. Also noteworthy is how LG U+ draws customers into product development as key participants through transparent communication, strengthening their attachment to the brand.

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Telecommunications is a service everyone uses. But how many people fully understand the telecommunications services they use? Even replacing a single mobile phone can be confusing, with numerous rate plans layered by 5G and LTE, data allowances, various add-on services and subscriber age groups. Then there are device installment balances, handset subsidies, selective contract discount, bundled discounts for fixed-line and mobile services, family discounts, affiliated credit card discounts, mandatory subscription periods and requirements to maintain certain services for a specified period. At this point, most consumers simply “give up trying to understand.” Many make their decision after hearing little more than “how much they will pay each month for the next few years.” Once they get past this hurdle and choose a telecom provider, they may have a brief moment to catch their breath, but the services that follow are just as complicated. There is one app for checking bills or changing rate plans, separate channels for fixed-line and mobile services, and another app for receiving membership benefits. The channels for reporting problems or getting customer support are also fragmented. What about international roaming? Each time customers wanted to use it, they had to find a reasonably priced service for each country and sign up again. Many people also hesitate to use their phones after arriving overseas for fear that they might unknowingly use large amounts of data and be hit with “bill shock.”

Of course, from a company’s perspective, there are reasons for such finely segmented options. As products are divided according to customer age and usage and new benefits are added, the number of options naturally grows. Because different organizations are responsible for mobile, internet and membership services, the services and apps are also separated. But in a word, it is “well-intentioned unfriendliness.” In trying to satisfy everyone, companies have ended up creating products that are hard for anyone to understand. What seems like a reasonable distinction within the company can feel like sheer complexity to customers. Some of this is unavoidable given the nature of telecommunications as a regulated industry, but from a customer experience perspective, it is difficult to accept such inconvenience. That is why, at least in Korea, “complicated” has been the adjective most associated with telecommunications services.

LG U+ found the answer to customer experience innovation in reducing this familiar complexity. First, in October 2025, it launched the integrated “U+one” app, combining the previously separate customer service and membership apps into one. In May, it reduced its 53 5G and LTE rate plans to 18. It redesigned the structure so that customers could choose products more easily based on data allowances and speeds instead of comparing rate plans one by one by network type and age group. It also introduced an “all-in-one promotional offering” that combined the previously separate mobile and internet subscription processes and bundled fixed-line and mobile services into a single package. It also made smaller changes, such as allowing parents to manage their children’s bills and data usage from their own phones and placing frequently used menus directly on the home screen.

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