Welcome to Service Design Principles. I'm Guy Martin, joined by the author of the Service Design Principles series of Books, founder of the Swiss Innovation Academy and Service Design Maestro the elegant Daniele Catalanotto. Hi, Daniele!
Thanks, Guy. Such a pleasure to be with you today.
Same here. So each episode we look at some of the principles from your book Service Design principles 1 to 100. And today we're talking about impersonal services. So in service design, we often try and remember that the relationships that we have between humans and other humans, although the reality is that it's often between humans and organizations, and that's where there can be a big opportunity to make a small change to a service to make it less impersonal. So
where could we start, Daniele? .
Thanks so much for the question. I think it's a very important question because there is this this bug, you know, that we have in our minds, which is we are an organization. My friend who was a storyteller, he often when when he explained storytelling to organizations, he often one of the things he says is you might think because you are in an organization, you have to be serious because you are an organization. You can't tell stories just to
remember you, to remind to you. You are human listening, so to speak, lik humans, you know, and and is doing that very well. And that's kind of the reminder that that you brought in and that I think we we need as maybe the first element is there's this mindset shift that even if we are an organization it's a it's a bunch of humans that are in it. But to get very practical, you know, that's always what I love with these tiny principles is that it's stuff that you can apply right away.
And it's one principle is the one which is called ask unnecessary emotional information and this is basically something that happened to, I think, not something that happened to my wife when she was, you know, buying her dress for our wedding. That's something very emotional, obviously. And and the guy who sold it to her did something very smart. So she she picked the dress. She was very happy, you know, And you know, how how how people get into a situation
taking a lot of pictures. It's it's a very emotional and stuff. And so it's already a very emotional moment. But the guy doing the the sale at the end said one thing that changed everything for her. He said, what's the future name you'll use after your wedding? And then she said, Oh, it's going to be Joelle Catalanotto. Okay. So that's what I'm going to write on the receipt. And so he acknowledged that there was something, you know, that was very personal,
that was not necessary, you know, for his he ran it. The Syrian doesn't care if it's the the the the maiden name or the delay, the name that comes after, you know, the systems don't care about that stuff. But by asking that little unnecessary question, he showed oh, I'm I'm here I'm a human and I'm interested that a tiny bit in your life. And this changed completely for her the relationship. So when she came back, she didn't tell me about the dress, which is
interesting. She told me, Did you know what he asked? And then she she explained a lot about that. And so that's very interesting to me.
Yeah, he was probably the first to use that name with her as well. Right?
Exactly. So imagine how emotional that is. You
Yeah.
know, especially obviously, this is a very Swiss thing. I always have to say that because, you know, in Switzerland, there is kind of this culture of taking the name of more of
one on another can be in both ways, obviously. But it's something that is quite usual and quite common and that people kind of like the name of the change of name is something that is kind of a ritual that is that is that is quite emotional for people and therefore for him doing that, he was the first one to say, I recognize this ritual and we in it together
Yep.
and I'm giving you hints of what will happen, which is very lovely
right? No, that's smart. I mean, maybe it's easy, though, when it's a wedding dress, right? Because there's already emotion at stake. So is there a way that we can ask him unnecessarily emotional information when you're a different type of business?
yeah, I think many businesses do that well. So if it's more you know, salespeople do that very well, they ask about your kids. You know, it's a very simple thing. It's not necessary at that moment. But but it gives you it's it gives you a bit of a of a context of the life of the of the person, you know. So, for example, when you ask about the kid and it's a two year old that's usually three year old, you know, it gives you a lot of information about
what the person is going through in her life. You know, and it also helps kind of to to then empathize back and say, oh, okay, So you are you have the tough nights. I see. Yeah. Okay. Well, you manage such quite well. You know, and and that's kind of like that's one it's totally necessary in a way, you know, because people don't need to know that. But even if it's emotional, you know, it, it can also give a bit of a of a business value because you then understand better what the person is going
through. And therefore, you know that, you know, emotionally, you know, they are maybe less awake than the usual guy would be. And that's kind of an information that's that obviously you can ask, obviously being smart about it. You know, it's a the usual stuff is looking at at wedding rings and this kind
Mm
of stuff like yeah seeing that on the laptop there is a kid and say oh a kid photo they go how many do you have or what's their age? You know, and this kind of stuff. It's definitely not necessary, but it's a small stuff that you can do. And I've seen that done by sales guys and it's it changes the conversation
Yeah. I was going to say, I think salespeople know this intuitively, right? I mean, even though I know it's kind of like a tactic or it's a it's a sales method to, to, you know, make it personal. I still fall for it. I remember buying our car and my daughter was quite a lot younger than she is now. And the salesperson, you know, Yeah, I saw, you know, do you have a family and, you know, all these questions. But then he started to tailor the
style of the car to the needs that he could perceive. So it's like, oh, you know, we're talking about a sunroof like a moonroof. And in a way, it's like, okay, that's a bit of a luxury. It's like, well, have you ever been carsick in the car? Because sometimes looking up through the moonroof can make you less carsick. And kids often get carsick sometimes, especially when they're in the back. So I kind of knew it was like, okay, you're leading me down this path
here, but I'm on board, right? I'm with you on this journey because I feel it. You know, you've made it slightly emotional. I'm aware of it, which is like, you know, placebos still work, even though, you know, it's a placebo in some cases. So I was aware, but I still sort of fell for it. Got Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, this is probably the right car for me. I probably should invest a little bit more in that in that moonroof.
yeah And, and it's not because we know that it's a tactic that we don't see the value in it. You know,
No.
when you say hello, how are you, We all know this is just being polite, you know, but we still answer the question and say today I'm good. In fact, at the moment I'm not so good. You know, it's it's it's rituals, you know, and recognizing that sometimes these tactics are also a bit rituals and that they have to their value also to make it more personal. you know,
when I'm thinking about personal services, I always have in mind my my very good friends. And so I only say the names of people who are doing very good stuff or or name of brands that are doing exceptional stuff. So I will say a name, uh, which is my very good friend Patrizia. She will recognize herself when she is working at IKEA in Japan at the moment. And the and she, I worked back in, back in the days and her with her in a consultancy and
Okay.
she was the project manager, you know, who was able to transform projects into relationships. And one of the things that she did and which I love to observe is her PS in her work emails. Her PS was always something about the day, something personal, you know, where so but she said, you know, Oh, PS, just came back from holidays, super excited to get started again, you know. But but then she was specific, you know, she said, oh, just back from Bali, so
happy. And then what would happen is that she would have PS conversations. So there was always kind of like the business conversation and the
Yep.
PS conversation happening.
Interesting
And so she got really deep into into relationships with with the people she she worked with so that, you know, when she left, you know, people were like very sad that she was the person leaving because they said, no, no, no, We we are not here because of the consultancy. You know, we didn't stay because of the consultancy. We stayed because of her.
Right?
And that's that's kind of magic, you know. And so this is another example of how this unnecessary personal information, sometimes it's asking one, but sometimes it's it's better also to just give one, you know, giving one as we are people of reciprocity. You know, you I'm giving you a personal information. What will happen is you will give me you will give me one back, and
then suddenly we are in a level which is not anymore. Guy is speaking to Daniele, Guy from Neolux, Daniele from Swiss Innovation Academy. It's very serious and stuff,
Mm hmm.
but now it's we're talking about our kids, you know, and
Yeah.
our little struggles and it's very different.
No, that's really interesting. I mean, it's. It's good advice for personal relationship management as well, or building personal relationships, because, you know, I mentioned at the start it humans are dealing with other humans.But at work sometimes we see the roles and we say even like, like our boss or people in other departments are that's the, the, the developers and it's quite impersonal, as you say. But when you start to make those connections,
then it can be just as easy, like a piece. Then it starts to break down those those professional organizational walls and you get real relationships out of it. And that actually benefits your professional life as well. Right.
absolutely And, and it's it's a very good reminder that you're giving us here, whi is that, you know, there are kind of these different levels of services. And so now we would we being a bit more meta but I think it's it's a very good reminder. So there is this very simple practical level, you know, that are these services and principles stuff that you can do to
help customers, you know, feel better and feel more respected. And then there is kind of like the other side, which is, Oh, but now I can use that at work to, you know, to smooth into relationships at work. And then there is the last level, which is that if it works for work
and making customers happy, why not use it in family life, parties and stuff, you know? And so there are kind of these levels and and I think it's a very good reminder here to say once you've experimented with this kind of stuff, you know, let it flow to the other parts of your life because that's when you will get the most value of it. And it's true for services and it's
true for many practices. You know, doing mindfulness when you do it just 5 minutes a day and then suddenly you start to be mindful doing your work, then you start to be mindful doing your parenting stuff, you know, and then suddenly it gets it gets a bit further. But that's that's definitely a thing to see that it can spread out. But
Mm hmm. Everything's interconnected.
yeah, indeed, indeed.
Yeah. Although I think if I presented my wife with a service blueprint on how to make a nice evening at home or something that might not go down so well, bu for some people, it might.
yeah, indeed. And maybe the service blueprint is not the best idea. Definitely. But you know, maybe doing a5y with your wife on the, on a parenting issue that you're both faced with, you know is a good exercise. You know,
know,
I always tell this story to to to the design studies I have is when I teach them how to do workshops and and affinity mapping. So and this kind of stuff, I always take them, tell them, you know, the day my wife announced that we're going to have a kid, obviously there was the emotional moment and then there was the oh shit moment is we going to have a kids, is going to
be serious and we're not prepared at all. And and I tell them, Do you know what I did? I took out Miro, which is one of these whiteboard apps, a we just packed all the sticky notes of all what was carrying in our heads, you know, and just put it there and then started to map it into, okay, this is stuff that we it's not our responsibility. Oh, these are more principles that we want to teach.
want.
These are very administrative tasks that we need to do next week and next month, etc.. And then suddenly we were like, okay, now we can be happy again about having a kids.And and it shows that, you know, these methods obviously not all, but they can spread out in, in the different parts of your life.
Yeah. I've heard stories of people where they have with. They've got young children, they've got toddlers, and suddenly they're able to much better communicate with the executive teams. I don't know if there's any relationship or correlation there, but I've heard these stories, you know,
I've heard them do it but if we'd came back to to the more daily stuff because the podcast is called Service Design Principles so I'm going to go back to to Earth level and, and maybe mentioned one one last of these principles in this impersonal topic, one which is very dear to me, which is this idea of
making it personal is different for every culture. And, you know, in in Switzerland we have kind of a fascination sometimes for for the states because obviously, you know, the states have such a big, impressive culture that sometimes we steal stuff from them, but sometimes also stuff gets brought into our culture. And an example is how some said some cafes that come from from the states in Switzerland ask you a question that is very weird for us Swiss. It's
you know, they they ask you what's your name, what's your first name? And then they want to put it on the coffee and the first time I had this interaction and it was a time where, you know, we didn't have all the movies about the states as as open
Mm hmm.
as today. It feels very weird to me because I was like, Who are you? Why do you want to need what? Why do you need my first name?
Mm hmm.
What's happening here?
That's
You know?
very personal.
Yeah. And, and you know, this is a chain and you're talking to me in so in, in French, we have two levels. You know, we have "tu", which is you, but we know each other, and we have "vous", which is you, but it's very polite and, and we don't know each other. And so she's speaking more to me in two, which means
Mm
we we are besties already, you know, like,hey ,
hmm.
we're not besties here.
Yeah. Slow down a bit.
Slow down a bit. And then I realized, oh, know, this is just a cultural element that comes from
Mm
states.
hmm.
And that at that time didn't make any sense in Switzerland. And because people are just like, Oh, but we don't have the cultural reference for that. And it felt very weird. So I think it brings us back that sometimes being personal in one country will look very impersonal in another country, and that's okay. And so we can we have to be mindful of these cultural elements that have what's personal in Japan is not the same thing that and what's
personal in Switzerland than what's personal. And to states. And obviously then you can go even regional. You know, what's personal in Texas is not the same then what's personal in the region of view in Switzerland and
Run.
and being mindful of that takes a bit of energy. But I think if you can be personal in the regional cultures specific way, then you're very strong
And I mean, you're talking about culture as, like, national culture or regional culture. But there are other types of cultures as well to be aware of, too. You know,
you.
the way people are brought up with their religious upbringing or, you know, just, just, you know, their education. So people will have a different culture if they've gone through business school compared to if they've gone through trade school. You know, it's, uh. So being aware of those those different cultures as well, I think is super important. And I can talk about culture for a long time, but I'll try and restrain myself here. But one more thing on that,
though, was you mentioned before about the ritual of Hi, how are you? And that's that's been something that that my wife, who is born in Denmark, she doesn't understand or she finds irritating, is like, Hi, how are you? It's like you don't really know one another, know how? How am I? You know, would you be happy if I came round and said, Well, act I've got a you know, I'm sore in my legs and I've got this rash and, you know, you really don't want to know that, so
don't ask. So it's though those that awareness is really interesting, even on something as simple as Hi, how are you? As like, okay. Well, it doesn't mean the same for everybody. Not everyone has that has that ritual.
absolutely. B we come to a close, uh, I know that you are very aware of the culture differences you've trained into these aspects, especially in cultural communication. And what's one, one kind of nuggets maybe that you have, you know, that when it comes to making things personal, but working in cross cultures, you know, because it can be very scary, you know,
Mm hmm.
I know that, you know, the way we say hello is very different and very in various cultures. What's for you? Maybe a tip or something that you say to avoid that In French we said faux
Faux
pas,
pas. Mm
you know, A
hmm.
Yeah, a mistake,
Yep.
you know, is there is are some tips that you can give to people. So it's, you know, oh, you're going to work on a global scale. Just do these things to make sure that you're the way you're going to be personal still is person
Sure we could make a whole podcast about some of this stuff as well. But, I mean, I guess at a very basic level is it's okay to research the cultures that you'll be dealing with. You know, if you know that you're going to be talking like if you're from the US and you're going to be dealing with someone from Germany, it's okay to get hints for dealing with people from Germany. A lot of the advice will be stereotypical, but stereotypes come from
somewhere. You know that there's a there's an element of truth, and you'll always have people that don't meet the stereotype and that that sort of deviate from from the expected cultural norms of that of that stereotype. But if you know nothing else about the person except from where they're from, you can make some assumptions and you can sort of step in a
direction where you go, oh, okay, well, they're probably going to respond well to this. So if we're talking about Germany for example, and we're talking about formal and informal before with with pronouns addressing German people by their last name can be quite important and a sign of respect. When you go into Scandinavia and Australia and the US, that's not as as
important. So you, you meet someone for the first time and you say, Oh, hi Jim, or Hi Daniele, but when you deal with someone from Germany for the first time or and I suppose it's the same in Switzerland or in regions of Switzerland, then Herr Catalanotto would come across much better than Daniele. And it's just that sign of respect. And then if they respond and say, Thanks Guy, then maybe that's an opening to say, okay, maybe we can be on a first
name basis now. So a bit bit of a long winded thing, but I mean, do the research and and there's plenty of resources out there and most of them are good. says, just to say, yes, it may be stereotypical, but if you have nothing else to go on, it does come from somewhere. So it's not a it will mean that you probably make less faux pas
yeah. So it's okay to research, learn to stereotype stereotypes, play a bit with them, and at least the worst thing that may happen is that people say, Oh, I'm not that kind of Swiss
That
guy. It's okay.
yeah,
And
yeah.
but at the same time, I will see that a guy has been someone who has done his homework and he read that people take out their shoes in Switzerland and
Right.
so and they will tell him
And
it's
I
okay.
was kind
Guy
of.
Yeah, I don't mean that often.
Hmm. Yeah. I mean that it's um, I guess if again, if we use Germans or Swiss as a stereotype, they're seen as very timely. Being punctual is extremely important, but not to everyone. But if you're punctual, that's going to go down well in any case, right.
And it,
So
it, it
it's also about adapting your own style to the people that you're communicating with as well. And that's, you know, being willing to do that.
also, I'm already excited to, to read, uh, to have some readings for my next travel.
One more thing I wanted to talk about, Daniele, was the principle of "Just Remember Me". Can you go a bit more into "Just Remember Me"?
Yeah. You know, there is this great moment where when when you're new in a city and you visit a little sort of one of those little services, you know, a bakery or a cafe or something like that, and you enter the service and in front of you, there is someone else who you see is a regular and you see a kind of very different interaction happening, which is the person to say hello and the person who is doing the service or the barriers, the baker or I
don't know how you call these guys in English, just giving the person directly what she wants. You know, it's like, Oh, as usual, Pam. Because she remembers the person and she says, and it is kind of like and say hello to the kids, you know? And then you're like, okay, this is a this is a
cafe I want to stay in. You know, because if I come often enough, they will remember me, you know, And it's a much more different perspective than if you go to Starbucks and, you know, you and they ask you your name, misspell it, and then call you Danilo and you have to remember that, oh, yes, they will never, never get my Italian name right. That's okay. And next time you come, they will misspell it in another creative way. So it's kind of like a bit of a difference there
Right. So for these small businesses, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because you get to know all of your customers. But for bigger businesses, how scalable is it to be so personal?
Indeed today, it's not so much of a big problem anymore. Back in the days when when we were and it was a bit more difficult. But today was, you know, all of the CRMs and the automations and all of that stuff, it's it's pretty easy. It's pretty easy. Obviously, you know, it's easier, I think, for small businesses to do it in a very purposeful way, you know, in a way that feels genuine, that feels warm and welcoming than the the automation that then, you
know, takes your last name for first name and then misses everything up. You know, that's that's a bit of a danger when you automate the automated things. But definitely it's possible to do, uh, and the one thing to remember is when you do this kind of automated thing is to, to always think, obviously I'm going to do it in the, uh, I want to remember the person, but I might not have the data for every person. So how do I fall back? Uh, or in a way that is, that
has a bit of grace. So, and a small example is one from my own newsletter where, uh, when I don't have the name of the person, it just says, Hey, lovely human, you know, which is a big difference from, hey, uh, first name tag missing, which makes
it's
okay, he doesn't recognize me at all, you know, And at least if you don't remember the person personally, at least you can remember something of the humanity, you know? And, like, lovely human is very much different than. Hey, sir. Hello, Uh, madam. Which might seem very
Mm.
obviously polite, but very boring, you know? How can you also play with those things when you fail to be personal? Uh, how can you still do something? It remembers me. Y know, I'm really bad with names, but usually people, at least they hope, don't notice it so much because
instead of, you know, being like, Hey, Nick,you just say, Hey, awesome guy. You know, at least in French, we have this kind of like, tiny things that you can say, like Big Boss, you know, and it's kind of a compliment, you know, which replaces the first name.
Right?
And at least the person, you know, is is kind of, oh, yeah, he sees a quality, you know, and therefore, even then, you know, even if it's impersonal, you still can, you know, greet in a way that is maybe not the first name because you don't remember it, but you remember that it's a great musician, you know, And
You
it's like, hey, Guitar Hero.
know, Right.
And
Yeah.
then it's like, Oh, the person recognized me And so I'm curious, you know, in, in your own experiences because I always tell you that you are a service design expert as you use a lot of, of services, obviously, and in your own experiences using different services, what is something where you feel like, oh, now I'm recognized as myself, you know, and this makes me feel seen not just as a, uh, customer number 2 to 3,
Mm hmm.
but as a guy.
Mm. I mean, I think it's this kind of links into some of the other principles that we've talked about as well, in that if you have the information about me, like, if you have some
information about, like my date of birth, for example, then it's not difficult to use it. So if I'm engaged with a, uh, like a larger organization, which I know is not going to really know me personally, but I know that they have my some of my personal information, I guess I get a bit frustrated when they don't utilize that, you know, or, or I get surprised when they do. So if I get a, you know, we saw it was your birthday. Happy birthday. Okay, that's that's
great. You've got my date of birth. And so you've used it in a way that that is it kind of personalizes or helps build the relationship. And then when you have another interaction and maybe you've bought several things of the same type from this organization before the last
three times. So the fourth time they may say, you know, did you want to buy this again? Or here's something else that we we think you might like, you know, some simple recommendations, but really, based on the previous interactions I've had with them, then that's that's a surprising thing to me. And it should I don't think it should be surprising in a way, because if you've
got that information, then then, you know, utilize it. Yeah, and I guess that's why I liked that that, that, that principle of remember me. It's not just remember me and my name, but also remember my preferences. So there is, um, there's an idea in we're going to talk about hotels again because we always end up here in our hotel. There was a technology that that that
was coming out. And I think this is still probably is where you could control the temperature of the room through automation so that you could save money when the room wasn't occupied and you could provide good comfort when you knew the room was occupied. Now, if you have that linked up to the property management system, so in the reservation system, you know who's arriving and you know, okay, well, this person is coming from maybe the Middle East. And we
know that every time they come here, they sit there. The air conditioner to 19 degrees right. It's quite cool because they're used to very strong air conditioning. The next time the person comes, then we should preset their air conditioning to 19 degrees because we know this about them. We've got that information and we're used to it. So that's that's something about remembering me and remembering my preferences as well.
Yeah , absolutely. It's crazy. You know, how much data or pieces of information we share. You know that people organizations have about us stored somewhere, you know, and they never get used in the right way. You know, it's kind of funny where when it's like you, you have the the birthday of the person, but then you ask them to fill a form and you don't pre fill it with the information you already have. Obviously, it's a
bit technical. It's it's the work to make it happen like that, you know but, but this kind of pre feeling thing makes a lot of sense, especially when you're a big organization and that's a that's a very smart and lovely way to show we've seen you we remember you We do the work for you you know and just using the data properly is kind of like a sign
hmm.
of.
We respect your time.
Exactly. It's a sign of respect, you know, uh, and especially for big organizations, I think for, for smaller organizations, we, we are much, much more forgiving, you know, And we think, okay, you know, if my bakery doesn't remember exactly my birthday, it's okay. You know, they, they, they don't have the the software tools and the things to do it. Strangely enough, the bakery remembers your birthday. Even if they don't have a software because they have less
Yeah,
people
they're
to
more likely
it.
to.
But
Yeah,
that that's kind of like
because
a
they care.
Yeah
Yeah.
because they care. Exactly. And uh, and I think that's, that's kind of like another lens is, you know, what, what can you do with the data you have about people to show that you care. You know, sometimes it's just not using it or saying to people, We have this data, we're going to use it for for, you know, we have to use it from a legal stand of, uh, from a legal point of
view for validating your account and stuff. But now we've deleted it. You know, that's a very respectful thing to do so that in other times it's we have the data, so we're going to feel stuff for you because we already have it, you know, and, and I think and sometimes it's just, you know, revealing that, yes, we have a lot of data about you and this is all of the data we have about you, especially for these big organizations there, that the play you the way
you play with the data is a bit of a way to showing this is how much we respect you. And it's quite an interesting, interesting bit.
Well, I'll certainly remember you. So thanks again for today, Daniele. It's been a great conversation.
yeah, obviously. And I always remember to to misspell your name and say, "ɡiː", instead of "ɡaɪ" because you know, it, it adds a little bit of fun.
Je ne sais quoi.
Absolutely
All right. Thanks, Daniele. And, and hopefully our listeners remember us for the next episode.