Guy: Seven. Don't solve every problem you're asked to solve.
Guy: 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
practitioner, the enigmatic Daniele Catalanotto.
Daniele: Hi Guy, it's such a pleasure to be here.
Guy: Same here. Now, each episode we look at one of the principles from your book, the Service
Design principles 1 to 100. today, it's principle number seven. Don't solve every
problem you're asked to solve. Now, this is a good one as naturally helpful people, and
perhaps also people who enjoy a good puzzle, can be drawn into trying to solve every problem that
passes our way. Why isn't this productive?
Daniele: I think now that I'm a dad, I have a bit of an additional take on that, which is, you
know, when you're kids, you know, they ask you for help and they say that can you please open
the bottle, you know, bringing you a problem, you know, and got up to a certain age, you open
the bottle for them because obviously muscular elements and dexterity are in there and you
don't want to get all the orange juice on on your pants, obviously. But there are moments
where later you have to just don't. So you don't have to solve the problem because what the
problem that that the your your little one is giving you is like it's not I can't open the
bottle. It's like I didn't learn how to open the bottle. It's like, okay, and why didn't you
learn about to open the bottle? Because I never teach. Taught you how to do it. And now. Okay,
let's solve the real problem. Which is we never took. We never took a moment to see how can we
open a bottle, you know, and. And do it at a level where I maybe open the first part and you
do the other parts, and. And you learn about it. And so it's it's it's recognizing that first and
there are problems which are not the right problem. And therefore, you have to go back and
ask, why is this happening? And then there is another part, which is sometimes there are
problems which are good because they are learning opportunities and or they are good
branding opportunities where it gives you then a possibility to create an interaction.
Guy: the. The five whys, for example, is was a way of getting to the root cause of a problem.
So we learn this doing diagnostics and troubleshooting and those sorts of things. But
you mentioned it's a branding opportunity. So just go a little bit more into into what you
mean by that.
Daniele: So the listeners might know that we love hotels, which is a thing that we speak a
lot of that
and I'm going to steal a story from another principal. But but which goes really well with
this one, which is a story about a air conditioning, you know, And so there was a hotel
where we went to and they had the problem was, was air conditioning, basically. They didn't
have all the rooms with air conditioning. But instead of putting already the fan an extra fan
in the room, what they make you do is they they they ask they wait that you come back down and
they say and that you say, oh, there is no air conditioning. And in that room I said, Oh, I'm
so sorry. Yes, yes, yes, it's terrible. But here is a fan and a bottle of champagne. How is it
there? There is an opportunity to say, let's not solve the problem because we can't put air
conditioning everywhere. And that's and these these rooms are cheaper and they tell you the
rooms are cheaper. They don't have air conditioning. And they tell you that once you
buy it. And so it's clear in the contract. But once you come in Sicily and it's too warm, you
just say, I need something. And here there is an opportunity to say let's let's not solve the
problem, but use it as a way and an opportunity to create another interaction.
Guy: That's interesting. It it makes me think about and I don't know if there's a term for it,
but I call it, The service paradox, which is where something goes wrong and you're able to
solve it, and your reputation with your customer is actually higher than if nothing went wrong at
all. Now, obviously, you don't want to create problems for customers. You want to have things
go smoothly, but at the same time, it's an opportunity to demonstrate how good you are at
solving problems. So yeah, it kind of ties in to that. But this is a little bit more deliberate
in a way, right?
Daniele: Yeah. And and then it comes to ask a question, you know, which is when we say don't
solve every problem yours to solve, it just means like there are problems which might not
happen often where you say the cost of solving it so that it never happens is way too high for
us, that we could just say it might happen a few times and we know that it might happen. And when
it happens, we have a way to turning it into a delightful experience. And so it's kind of like
not trying to make it like a fake moment, but saying, hey, there is good reason for us to not
solve it because it's just not happening enough or the cost of solving it is way too big. But we
are going to be going to choose to turn it into something that is quite cool
Guy: And not everyone may have an issue with their not being an air conditioner. Maybe some
people like a warmer room or something like this.
Daniele: you know, because many people, you know, say air conditioning is especially today, you
know, it's like
Guy: Unsustainable.
Daniele: sustainability. Not good. I'm in Italy, so it's warm, it's okay. I'm going to open the
window, feel the feel of the sea, you know, and hear the seagulls, if that's an experience, too.
You know, it's also part of the of the Sicilian charm, that half of it is broken, you know, and
that which is good, you know, because, you know, I can say that because I'm half Sicilian, you
know, And it's part of and it's part of our charm, you know, it's like it's like this this,
this, like and perfect world, which when you're coming from Switzerland or other northern
countries, you know, you're also searching (for) that romantic. Kind of half broken half working
experience, you know and and as you say, it's like the problem from one is not the problem for
the other. What is the problem for for everyone? Obviously, it's it makes sense to solve it.
Guy: So thank you very much again, Daniele.
Daniele: Thanks to you.