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Guy: Five. Every customer mistake is your
mistake.

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Guy: Welcome to Service Design Principles. I'm
Guy Martin, joined by the author of the Service

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Design Principles series of Books, founder of
the Swiss Innovation Academy and Service Design

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Practitioner, The Essential Daniele Catalanotto.
Hi, Daniele.

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Daniele: Hi, Guy. Pleasure to be with you today.

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Guy: Same here. So each episode we're looking at
one of the principles from your book, Service

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Design Principles, one to 100. And today it's
principle number five. Every customer mistake is

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your mistake. I worked a lot in corporate
training and education, and this feels related

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to the curse of knowledge where I might fail to
explain some things because I assume everyone

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has the same background knowledge as me, so they
may not understand the same jargon or

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abbreviations I'm using, and I end up more
confused than from when when I started. So is

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that what this is about?

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Daniele: Yeah. And it's also, you know, kind of
this thing where

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I feel sometimes as creators of services,
business owners and this kind of stuff, you know,

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we might be blocked by blaming others, you know,
thinking, oh, they just don't get it. You know,

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they are they are too stupid to go to to get it.
Or they did this mistake, you know, and and not

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thinking like, what can I do? And so it's kind
of reversing the fact that you can't change

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people. And so there is no value in the blame
because the problem will just repeat. But if you

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believe that, you say, oh, this problem happened
because we didn't do something to avoid it. And

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so it's kind of giving us back to the passivity,
to change things, to make change happen. But

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when we are in a blame position towards others,
then we just say, Hey, it's their problem.

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They're stupid. I can't I can't solve their
their, their stupidity. But if we say, Oh, this

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is on us, then oh, let me find ways to to help
people to not get into that problem

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Guy: Right. So it's a it's a mindset for saying,
okay, I can't change the environment. I can't

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change necessarily how the customer feels, but I
can change what I'm doing about it

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Daniele: yeah. And I have power on it. And, and
if there is something that is happening, you

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know, where sometimes it's also just recognizing
which is a bit philosophical, but recognizing

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that there are mistakes that you choose that
they will happen because you say, okay, I

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recognize that this is a mistake that we want to
happen because at the end of the day,

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it's not our responsibility there. But we are
very clear on it that it's a mistake that is

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happening and that we have decided that this is
not our responsibility. So it's still our

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responsibility to decide that we don't want to
fix the problem.

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Guy: Right. Making it conscious

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Daniele: Yeah, exactly. And not just, oh, it's a
problem. People do that. I say, okay, we we

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really have decided that this is something that
is happening and which is might be bad for

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people, but we know we don't want to solve it
for X and y reason and therefore we are in a

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position of

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being a bit more respectful. You know, also.

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Guy: So do you have an example to hand of of
something that sort of shows this in action?

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Daniele: So one example that I would give is one
very personal is,

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you know, my books, they are sometimes a bit
colorful in the in the language.

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Guy: Yes, We'll find that out very soon.

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Daniele: Exactly. which is, which is a thing
that you know I learned English in on Netflix

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and YouTube which might be something that has
influenced that but and so therefore my language

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was always that one. And what happened is that
some people bought my books and then wrote me

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back and said, but then yelling the language,
it's very terrible. You say shit and fuck a few

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times. It's I'm offended by it, you know, And,
and, and at first I was like, But yeah, sure,

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why is this a problem? You know? And then I was
like, But this is just you being, you know, not

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having imagined that there is other people in
the world that have maybe another way of

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expressing themselves. And then suddenly I
realized, okay, but what can I do about it? You

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know, And there's simple thing. I was like, okay,
I need to be more clear on my website. Use this

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kind of language much more. So that's even just
on the website. When people arrive, you know,

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they see shades I can and this kind of stuff so
that they already kind of know this guy doesn't

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speak in a very academic way. He speaks like a
like a normal guy who had a drink with you. And

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and so knowing that it's not like just oh,
people are giving me are going through a mistake,

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which is I bought this thinking it's going to be
academic, but it is not. And you swear in it,

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which is a mistake that happened and don't it's
my mistake because I didn't communicate well

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enough that this is not for them.

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Guy: Right.

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Daniele: And so that now I'm able to do a lot of
work on that, which helps me to just attract the

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right people and to avoid those who would do a
mistake by buying my book.

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Guy: Yeah. So, I mean, you could have reacted by
saying, okay, well, I'm going to make an extra

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effort not to swear anymore. But you decided you
made that conscious decision to say, well, let's

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use it as a filter. Let's. Let's filter out the
people that that I can resonate with better. And

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those that want to see something more academic
than maybe they'll go somewhere else. And and

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and I can have more fun doing my work.

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Daniele: exactly. Exactly.

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Guy: Well, shit, That sounds great!

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Daniele: But yeah, it's it's taking
responsibility. I think that's really the point

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here. It's taking responsibility on what is
happening and taking responsibility sometimes

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means that you're fixing the mistake. Sometimes
it means that you are avoiding that people fall

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into mistake and sometimes it's agreeing that
you will have to live with it because you have

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decided to make it happen.

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Guy: Thank you very much. We'll see you on the
next one.