Guy Martin: Welcome to Service Design Principles.
Guy Martin: 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 empathetic Daniele Catalanotto.
Guy Martin: Hi, Daniele.
Daniele Catalanotto: Such a pleasure to be again with you today.
Guy Martin: Yeah, it's fantastic whenever we get to meet up.
Guy Martin: So thank you for coming.
Guy Martin: Now, each episode, we look at some of the principles from Daniele's book, Service Design Principles 1-100.
Guy Martin: And today we're talking about waiting.
Guy Martin: Now, waiting is almost inevitable, whether it's in the line at the airport or on the phone, waiting for a customer service representative.
Guy Martin: And in most cases, our time is really important to them.
Guy Martin: Well, so they say.
Guy Martin: So how can businesses make waiting more bearable?
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, it's a very good question.
Daniele Catalanotto: And it's a thing that I have evolved with, you know.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, when I started in service design, I was like, very driven in no way it shouldn't be a thing that is happening, you know.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, and being very much into this kind of fight of, oh, this sucks, this is bad.
Daniele Catalanotto: And now I'm like, hey, but sometimes we should let people wait a little bit.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, there is value in the slowness also.
Daniele Catalanotto: So I have now a bit of a more nuanced answer, but basically the one key element for me that comes when we speak about wait is understanding that time is a perception.
Daniele Catalanotto: And once we understand that, it unlocks a lot.
Guy Martin: So go into that a little more, especially about it may be okay to make people wait.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, so there is a, I don't remember the name right now, but there is this great guy doing behavioral economics stuff.
Daniele Catalanotto: And he has a very good TED talk about that, where he basically gives you an example where he says, so imagine being in a train from London to Paris, and no Wi-Fi, it sucks.
Daniele Catalanotto: Now imagine you're in the same train, you have no Wi-Fi, but you have waiters and waitresses who bring you champagne and who are in the most lovely dresses and costumes that you could dream of.
Daniele Catalanotto: Once you arrive to Paris, what you would say is, could I just go back to London and redo that again?
Daniele Catalanotto: And so this is a very interesting way of seeing time, where it's not just only how much time do I spend in it, how much time do I invest in it, but how's the quality of the time I have?
Daniele Catalanotto: And so I think there, there is a lot of elements that we can play with.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so there are simple changes that we can do.
Daniele Catalanotto: So changing the perception that people have of the time they're spending, so giving them something to do.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, obviously when you're busy, time flies by, but when you're just waiting and doing nothing, you know, there is even a study that is very interesting where they realize that people would prefer to get electric shocks that wait.
Daniele Catalanotto: So it's, so waiting doing nothing.
Daniele Catalanotto: So that's the important caveat here, waiting doing nothing.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so people are not used to get alone with their thoughts.
Daniele Catalanotto: So changing our perception of time is definitely one of the elements.
Daniele Catalanotto: But wait is something that can be very important too.
Daniele Catalanotto: So for example, there are key medical procedures, at least here in Switzerland, where when you want to get one, you'll get first a meeting with the doctor, and then he will tell you, okay, before we can do the medical procedure, we'll have by law to make you wait, a number of months, and then you can take your decision.
Daniele Catalanotto: So we inform you about all the risks or what it implies, but by law, we want you to wait because we believe that rushed decisions are sometimes not the best decisions.
Daniele Catalanotto: So sometimes wait is good.
Guy Martin: So similar to when you go and buy a car, in some countries it's mandated you have three days cooling off period.
Daniele Catalanotto: Oh, I didn't know that.
Guy Martin: Once you sign the documents, you have three days where you can back out of the deal with no penalty.
Guy Martin: So, and it's funny that they call it a cooling off period because again, it's, you know, making that rash decision and forcing you to wait.
Guy Martin: If we look at the wait time to get a gun license or to buy a gun, this is probably also a good thing, right?
Guy Martin: If you're hot under the collar and you're angry, you've just had a bad experience and you want to, you know, emotionally get revenge or something like this, it's probably good for society that you have to wait before you can go out and purchase a gun and, you know, purchase ammunition and things like this if you didn't already have it.
Daniele Catalanotto: And there are studies that back this up.
Daniele Catalanotto: So I've been once in a, don't ask me why, but I've been in a suicide prevention convention for a week.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so had the chance to get a lot of the academic people teaching all the things that work for suicide prevention.
Daniele Catalanotto: And one of the things that really works well is kind of these delays where you say, we're gonna put in, and it's just a policy matter, you know.
Daniele Catalanotto: So that's kind of like, you know, age during this thing, you know, where being maybe a bit younger, I had maybe a view of weight being this thing that we have to chase and make feel, so maybe not remove it, but at least change the perception so that you don't feel that you weight.
Daniele Catalanotto: But I feel that sometimes, you know, getting older, giving space for people to weight, even if it sucks, you know, sometimes it's good.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so that's kind of like how I would give a bit of more nuanced aspect.
Daniele Catalanotto: But if we are also deeply honest, you know, a lot of the waiting time that happens in businesses, you know, could be avoided easily and isn't of a profound quality that brings reflection.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, when I'm waiting at the dentist, it's not that time where I reflect deeply on my life choices.
Guy Martin: And I assume there's no waitresses bringing champagne to you at the dentist as well.
Daniele Catalanotto: And which would be great.
Guy Martin: That could be an idea.
Daniele Catalanotto: I would go to that dentist.
Guy Martin: There's an opportunity there.
Daniele Catalanotto: So that's kind of like the bit of the introduction to KFS.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's not all the way it is bad, but also recognizing that a lot of the wait that happens is not needed or can be kind of changed through simple things of perception.
Guy Martin: Right.
Guy Martin: So talking about perception, how can we like, if there's a forced wait, if I'm on the phone to my telephone provider, or I have to go and do something with the local government or something like this, where inevitably I have to wait and there's no joy in that.
Guy Martin: So what can we do or what can those organizations do to make that more tolerable or even enjoyable?
Daniele Catalanotto: So there are a few very simple things, which then depend on if it's a hotline, obviously then comes all the technological question of the hotline system that you bought, et cetera.
Daniele Catalanotto: But today you see a few companies doing something which is pretty smart, which is a kind of a callback thing, where instead of waiting in line that someone serves you, you just say, okay, I'd like to get a phone callback.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so there are basically two ways of doing it, from what I've seen.
Daniele Catalanotto: One, which is kind of the low-cost way, which is scheduling an appointment.
Daniele Catalanotto: So I'm speaking now for the small businesses.
Daniele Catalanotto: So for a small business that says, oh, we don't have a hotline thing, we just have a phone number, but people have to wait, we put them on hold.
Daniele Catalanotto: You can use tools like Calendly, where people just can see a calendar and they book a time and say, yes, I want to speak with someone.
Daniele Catalanotto: Maybe it's not right now, right now, that's okay.
Daniele Catalanotto: And a lot of cases, it's not right now, right now, and it could wait an hour, it could wait a day.
Daniele Catalanotto: But then people choose the time that is best for them.
Daniele Catalanotto: They say, oh, I have my kids at school between that time and that time.
Daniele Catalanotto: That's a perfect time to call me back.
Daniele Catalanotto: So that's one way of doing it.
Guy Martin: It's kind of like it's unexpected that they didn't want to wait.
Guy Martin: If they could get through straight away, that would be great.
Guy Martin: But then you're giving them the solution to that as well and saying, okay, but I know this is annoying, but here's a way that we can solve this that's not too difficult or not too hard on you.
Daniele Catalanotto: Exactly, and so basically what you could do at that moment is say, hey, is it something extremely urgent?
Daniele Catalanotto: Then call this number, you might have to wait a few minutes or schedule a call and you can choose the best time for you.
Daniele Catalanotto: So that's kind of like the not getting people in the hotline first element.
Daniele Catalanotto: And the other one is when you call hotline, so this is something that happens now also is that they say, Oh, would you like us to call you back when there is someone free?
Daniele Catalanotto: And then you say, OK, cool.
Daniele Catalanotto: So I don't have to listen to the stupid music.
Daniele Catalanotto: I don't have to put it on loud so that I hear it.
Daniele Catalanotto: And, you know, it's kind of messing my email flow while I'm waiting and doing that.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I'm getting angry because I'm hearing for the hundredth time.
Daniele Catalanotto: Your time is precious to us.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's like, yeah, fuck you.
Guy Martin: Prove it.
Daniele Catalanotto: So this is kind of one thing.
Daniele Catalanotto: And then there are the little kind of, how would you say that?
Daniele Catalanotto: The little polite things, you know.
Daniele Catalanotto: If we know that people might wait more than three minutes, how is it that these loops in hotlines, you know, are 30-second loops?
Guy Martin: Oh, that's a good point.
Daniele Catalanotto: So maybe we just have to think about a loop that's, you know, design a loop of five minutes.
Guy Martin: Right.
Daniele Catalanotto: And then, you know, don't say stuff that if you would hear it a second time, would get you angry.
Daniele Catalanotto: So your time is precious.
Daniele Catalanotto: Hearing it once is good.
Daniele Catalanotto: Hearing it twice, it really sucks.
Daniele Catalanotto: So just be a mindful guy, like thinking, if I'm giving this information twice, will they be happy to have it twice or not?
Guy Martin: Yeah.
Guy Martin: No, it's a really good point because when you start to hear, you start to recognize, oh, hang on.
Guy Martin: I've heard this horrible music before, or even nice music, even if they have nice music.
Guy Martin: But you've heard it before or you've heard it the third time, you start to go, okay, I've been waiting for a while here because this classical piece of music that normally lasts 10 minutes has now repeated because they've only taken a short clip.
Guy Martin: So again, it's about that perception.
Guy Martin: By adding music, if you're not mindful about the length of that music, you can actually make the perception of waiting worse.
Daniele Catalanotto: And especially if, because often there are these edge cases, you know, average waiting time is maybe three minutes.
Daniele Catalanotto: So you think, oh, we're going to do it perfectly for these three minutes.
Daniele Catalanotto: But the few people who have to wait 20 minutes having a three minute loop, you know, it will feel like horror because they will notice that you designed it not for them because they will notice they never thought that it could be repeated 200 times.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so you know now that this is an error that is happening.
Daniele Catalanotto: But if it was meant to be something long, then you say, okay, it's okay.
Daniele Catalanotto: Kind of normal.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, they have a lot of people.
Daniele Catalanotto: It happens.
Daniele Catalanotto: Shit happens.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's okay.
Daniele Catalanotto: Maybe I'm a bit angry, but I don't realize it's like the music doesn't add to it that this isn't normal.
Daniele Catalanotto: I think this is definitely an important point.
Daniele Catalanotto: But I'm very curious because, Guy, you have a very good sensibility for service design stuff and service experiences.
Daniele Catalanotto: So what are the things that you have seen in waiting time where you said, oh, this is smart, or where you have been through something which was difficult and where you were like, oh, if they just did that, this would have changed completely my experience.
Guy Martin: The first thing that comes to mind when I start thinking about changing the perception of waiting time was something that they did with elevators.
Guy Martin: And so I can't claim any credit on this at all.
Guy Martin: This was a study that was done a number of years ago when they're trying to reduce the perception of waiting times with elevators and they put a mirror there.
Guy Martin: So they didn't change anything about the elevators.
Guy Martin: They didn't change the sequencing or the times or speed them up or spend hundreds of thousands of euro to upgrade them.
Guy Martin: They just put a mirror in on each of the lift lobbies.
Guy Martin: And then that time that you're spent waiting was then occupied because we like to look at ourselves.
Daniele Catalanotto: Fix our hair.
Guy Martin: Exactly.
Guy Martin: And even on like a video conference call or something, the default is that your video is visible and then you're drawn to looking at yourself because you're always saying, am I making a good impression?
Guy Martin: So, incidentally, that's one of the first things I try and switch off so that I can connect better to people and move the focus from me to the camera, something like this.
Guy Martin: Anyway, so by adding that mirror, we're now occupying our time.
Guy Martin: And then suddenly the perception of the wait times decreases.
Guy Martin: So that was a good study.
Guy Martin: And then there was another study, a change that they made, and I think it might have been at one of the US airports.
Guy Martin: And they discovered that if you get to the baggage carousel before your bags, you get even more frustrated and you say, oh, I have to wait so long.
Guy Martin: So they rerouted the route from the plane, from the terminal where you arrive, and you had to walk longer to get to the baggage carousel.
Guy Martin: So by the time you got there, your bag was waiting for you.
Guy Martin: And the satisfaction ratings with the airport actually went up.
Guy Martin: And I thought that was really clever.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's lovely how these examples, they're pretty well known.
Daniele Catalanotto: I've included, I think, that one in one of the next books of the series.
Daniele Catalanotto: And they really show that, which is sometimes doing something which is counterintuitive, like making it longer, indeed just makes it shorter in the mind of people.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I think this is definitely very inspiring.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I'd be curious, you know, so from the conversation we're having, I'm kind of having a bit of a mental framework that I'm coming up with, which is how to choose when weight is good, when weight should be fixed, and when you should work on the perception.
Daniele Catalanotto: Because I think there is kind of these elements, you know, because not all weight is weight.
Daniele Catalanotto: So if we imagine this, you know, I think the first question that we should ask ourselves when we have something that is weight is like, okay, does it add value that it's weight?
Daniele Catalanotto: This is the first question.
Daniele Catalanotto: And if you say yes, because it makes people think, you know, and it gives them the space, even if it's uncomfortable, you know, sometimes it's uncomfortable to be alone with your thoughts, but it's really needed.
Daniele Catalanotto: Then you say, no, okay, this is something needed.
Daniele Catalanotto: Or how can we make it something that brings a value?
Daniele Catalanotto: So this is kind of the first question.
Daniele Catalanotto: And if we say no, this is not needed, then the question is, is it technically feasible to remove that weight?
Daniele Catalanotto: So can we just remove it because it's just a process logistical thing where, hey, a few departments have to work together and they can streamline stuff and no weight will happen, or we have to buy another technology and we can remove it.
Daniele Catalanotto: And then there is the other question.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so if the answer is no, because it will cost too much, it's too complex, etc.
Daniele Catalanotto: then we can jump on the perception.
Daniele Catalanotto: So how can we change the perception of time?
Daniele Catalanotto: And it's only then that we can then really go and say, okay, if we can't change anything, and if it has no value, then we can add to it elements that it's a mirror, it's make it a bit longer, so that people do something else, you know, giving distractions.
Daniele Catalanotto: Or, you know, as Disney does that also, you know, in the waiting line, they use the waiting line to give pre-shows of other elements.
Daniele Catalanotto: So while you're waiting, because you have to wait, there is no possibility to not make you wait.
Daniele Catalanotto: They say, hey, we're going to put a clown in the middle.
Daniele Catalanotto: And, you know, kids maybe will say at the end of the thing, oh, you know, the space mountain thing, which was enormous, wasn't fun, but the clown, he was really cool.
Daniele Catalanotto: And that's okay.
Guy Martin: It's like you bring home a toy or something for your cat and the cat ends up playing with the box more.
Guy Martin: It doesn't want to play with the toy.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, exactly.
Daniele Catalanotto: And which would be kind of the best sign, you know, if you have someone say, oh, the best moment of your experience was the waiting time.
Guy Martin: Yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: And it's like, okay, we did a great job.
Guy Martin: But that doesn't mean that you should try and extend the waiting times to extend satisfaction.
Guy Martin: It doesn't quite work that way, I'm guessing.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, indeed.
Guy Martin: You mentioned the queues at Disney, and I think one thing that they do well, and I'm thinking I live close to Legoland in Denmark, is putting the waiting times or the estimated times in the queue.
Guy Martin: So there's physical signs to say, from this point, you can expect to wait about 10 minutes.
Guy Martin: From this point, you can expect to wait about 8 minutes.
Guy Martin: You know, and giving a lot of information to the guests.
Guy Martin: So I guess it's important because there's one thing about perception.
Guy Martin: But then there's also information and transparency and reducing uncertainty, which I suppose also helps in these situations.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, definitely.
Daniele Catalanotto: And there is the same under-promise over-delivery.
Daniele Catalanotto: And in these moments, you can do basically the same.
Daniele Catalanotto: If you know that usually it takes 15 minutes, say that it takes 20.
Guy Martin: Build a buffer.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's a good thing.
Daniele Catalanotto: Worst case happens is the one who's waiting 20 minutes, he will say, they got it really on time.
Daniele Catalanotto: They did their math really well.
Daniele Catalanotto: And the 95% of the people will say, hey, they are quicker than they should.
Daniele Catalanotto: But it's just because you changed the promise.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I think often we, as professionals, we want to sell our best selves or as organizations.
Daniele Catalanotto: And sometimes we should better sell our worst self and let people be surprised by how good we can be.
Guy Martin: I was going to say, it's like the Scotty Principle from Star Trek, where he says, you know, I think he's teaching an apprentice or something like this.
Guy Martin: And you say, you never tell them how long it's actually going to take.
Guy Martin: You always double it and then, you know, you deliver before.
Guy Martin: And that's how you end up a star engineer sort of thing.
Guy Martin: And I think a lot of project managers and things have taken that on board as well.
Guy Martin: And sort of, you know, overestimate the time that it might take to deliver something and then deliver it early.
Guy Martin: So that might be a whole other set of principles there though.
Daniele Catalanotto: But I think, you know, it shows how these elements are linked together.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, that waiting time isn't just about waiting time.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's also a promise that you're making.
Daniele Catalanotto: And that when you make promises, you should be smart about it.
Daniele Catalanotto: And that there is, again, that too little information will be a problem.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, not knowing how much it usually takes will be a problem.
Daniele Catalanotto: But seeing, you know, a panel every five meters that says, okay, now from here it should be 20 minutes from here, 15 minutes from here, 10 minutes, will get you like, okay, I'm going to look at my stopwatch to see if it is true.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, and then it gets in another way, which isn't useful.
Daniele Catalanotto: But there is one specific element that when it comes to waiting time, thinking about Disney and this is, you know, I think a lot of services could steal stuff from Disney, especially because their way of thinking, you know, they are made for kids who have no patience, you know, and I think there are very good examples.
Daniele Catalanotto: For example, there is one which is, you know, an airport in London, I don't remember which one, but they do something which is very smart, where they have these lines where you have to go through security.
Daniele Catalanotto: And obviously security in England, you know, doesn't feel like security in Switzerland, where security in England, you know, there you have terrorist attack and stuff, where you see people with guns.
Daniele Catalanotto: So for us Swiss people, you know, this is normal, you know, we don't know what is a terrorist attack.
Daniele Catalanotto: So for us going through security is just like seeing a nice guy saying hello, and that's it.
Daniele Catalanotto: But there it feels like a very, very strange...
Guy Martin: A different experience.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, it's a different experience, yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: And if you're with kids, you know, it's going to be a stressful one, because you don't want your kids to do fun stuff in the middle of that waiting line, you know, and shouting and doing...
Daniele Catalanotto: So they did one thing that is very smart, you know, at the start of the line, you have a little box where kids can take a little game, which is a thing on paper, and they give a pen, where it's then a little kind of game that they have to do while they are on the pass of the waiting line.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so they have cues that come through the line with little problems that they have to solve, and it then gives them the solution of the mystery once they arrive to the police guy, which is super smart, because then you're like, hey, okay, so we're going to work on this clue, and the next one is there.
Daniele Catalanotto: Okay, so now we can work a little bit on that, and the kid has to stay next to you, because there is a reason to stay on the line now, and I think there there is a lot to think about, you know, when we go look at how other industries deal with time and weight, and then we can say, hey, how could we import this?
Daniele Catalanotto: And then we see examples like that one.
Daniele Catalanotto: I don't know if they stole it directly from Disney, but it feels like it, you know, that they understood that children are also a part of the waiting time and that if the kids get angry, it's going to make the parents angry, which will make the kids even more angry, which will fuck up the situation for everybody who is in the room.
Guy Martin: Right.
Daniele Catalanotto: And understanding that is definitely another element, which can be interesting.
Guy Martin: I think that game might be fun for the adults as well.
Guy Martin: They start to get invested in it too.
Guy Martin: Yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: And they did it in a very smart way, because instead of being a random game, it was a game about airport security and this kind of stuff where it taught you why is there so much security?
Daniele Catalanotto: Why is it important?
Daniele Catalanotto: Why is there a dog?
Daniele Catalanotto: What can the dog do?
Daniele Catalanotto: It's like, oh, this is interesting.
Daniele Catalanotto: So it's not only a fun moment, it's also an education moment.
Daniele Catalanotto: And maybe this brings us to another principle.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know, there are so many about wait.
Daniele Catalanotto: You see, I could ramble for hours, but I will just share that one more, which is a company does that on their hotline, which is super smart.
Daniele Catalanotto: So you're on the hotline, you're waiting.
Daniele Catalanotto: And while you wait, they teach you something about their service.
Daniele Catalanotto: So they say, did you know that?
Daniele Catalanotto: And they speak to you about a hidden feature, or one of these pro features that you have.
Daniele Catalanotto: Oh, in fact, I didn't know that I could do that in that software or in that service.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so you go out of the thing thinking, hey, sure, I had to wait, but now I'm going to be more productive with what I learned.
Daniele Catalanotto: So it's kind of okay.
Guy Martin: Yeah, except when they're halfway through in the saying, and the secret to this is, hello.
Guy Martin: You mentioned here in principle 18 and 19, you're talking about using phones and being able to use your smartphone.
Guy Martin: Now, in some circumstances, that's not okay.
Guy Martin: Like in the customs line or the security line at the airport, very often they say, do not use your phone.
Guy Martin: Although I think that's more about taking pictures than it is actually using your phone.
Guy Martin: But in a way, you say that you shouldn't forbid people from using their phone or occupying themselves.
Guy Martin: And I guess that's about using their time effectively or in a way that they feel they're in more control.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: Another way of seeing it is, which is a bit more critical.
Daniele Catalanotto: Obviously, age makes you a little bit more critical.
Daniele Catalanotto: Most people are addicts.
Daniele Catalanotto: And you wouldn't take the drugs out of an addict in a waiting line.
Daniele Catalanotto: That would be a very bad idea.
Daniele Catalanotto: Saying to an addict, oh, I'm going to make you wait for a few hours, and all the drugs that you're used to, that you take every three seconds, I'm going to take them out.
Daniele Catalanotto: That's basically the phones.
Daniele Catalanotto: And most people are addicted to their technology.
Daniele Catalanotto: When they don't know what to do, they open it, they scroll a little bit, they go on Instagram, check their mails, and do this kind of stuff.
Daniele Catalanotto: So if you want to get people angry, take out their addiction.
Daniele Catalanotto: That's going to work really well.
Daniele Catalanotto: So it's a bit critical to say it like that, because it says something bad about the state of our world.
Daniele Catalanotto: But at the same time, I think it's not as...
Daniele Catalanotto: Depending on the businesses, it's not our place to give a judgment on that.
Daniele Catalanotto: But there are places where it's good to make that judgment.
Daniele Catalanotto: For example, there are some cafes, I know one in Geneva, where they very clearly tell you, if you enter in here, we don't want to see any device.
Daniele Catalanotto: This is a device-free zone.
Daniele Catalanotto: This is a place where we speak to people, we watch people in the eyes.
Daniele Catalanotto: Even when we wait, it's a human experience.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's a choice.
Daniele Catalanotto: Obviously, there are some people who will never go there because they will say, you're stealing my addiction, which is not good.
Daniele Catalanotto: But for many places, it's how important is it really that you forbid people to use a phone?
Daniele Catalanotto: As you said, I think the really important thing, security-wise or privacy-wise, is that people don't take pictures.
Daniele Catalanotto: I think that's true for hospitals, that's true for government services, where you don't want people to take pictures.
Daniele Catalanotto: That's a reasonable thing to ask for.
Daniele Catalanotto: But there are so many other things that people can do on their phones and take pictures.
Daniele Catalanotto: I would prefer to say, just allow people.
Daniele Catalanotto: What's the cost of allowing people to be on their phone?
Guy Martin: That makes sense.
Guy Martin: Our smartphone usage is in a way making us dumber.
Guy Martin: These smartphones make us dumber in some respects.
Guy Martin: Or they make us more dependent.
Guy Martin: You talk about the little dopamine hits and things like this.
Guy Martin: It relates to addiction.
Guy Martin: Addiction is the right word for it.
Guy Martin: As you say, stopping people from doing it, you're passing judgment.
Guy Martin: However, you can recognize that people need this little dopamine hit.
Guy Martin: Recognizing that makes their experience or their perception of that waiting experience a little bit more tolerable.
Guy Martin: Taking it away makes it incredibly less tolerable.
Daniele Catalanotto: Especially because the places where people ask you to not have the phone is definitely the place where I think people should have the choice to have their phone.
Daniele Catalanotto: So it's the waiting room of a hospital.
Daniele Catalanotto: Before getting the answer on do you have cancer or not, I have to say it's maybe not the moment where I be the most mindful.
Daniele Catalanotto: Where I might just want to look at something to be distracted.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I think it's a very valid thing to ask for that.
Daniele Catalanotto: Or being in a government office where you got fined for something and you have to go and chat with someone.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's not a comfortable thing.
Daniele Catalanotto: You know that you will be in a conversation that you don't want to have, but you will have.
Daniele Catalanotto: So giving people just this five-minute break in their life before they get into the very shitty situation, I think it's something where we can be graceful enough to say, hey, it's okay.
Guy Martin: Don't make the rules for the worst of the people.
Guy Martin: Not everyone is going to do it, but if you ask politely, please don't take photos and you can use your phone, the majority will respect that, and they'll understand why as well.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I think here you bring also this point, which is very important, which is the why of the weight, and why we put some constraints on aspects of the weight in time.
Daniele Catalanotto: A good example here again is a hospital in Biel, in Switzerland, where when you enter in it and you're in the weighting area, there is a big poster explaining to you how weight happens here.
Daniele Catalanotto: Basically, they say, based on the emergency, someone might get before you.
Daniele Catalanotto: That's normal?
Guy Martin: Triage.
Daniele Catalanotto: Exactly.
Daniele Catalanotto: Basically, they explain it to you.
Daniele Catalanotto: They say, this is how we do it.
Daniele Catalanotto: Basically, we're saying you should wait 30 minutes, but that is if no bigger emergency than you arrives.
Daniele Catalanotto: We're thankful of your patience when something bigger than you is coming.
Daniele Catalanotto: I think this is smart.
Guy Martin: Yeah, absolutely.
Guy Martin: Especially in that situation where most of the time, we expect that first in is first served.
Guy Martin: You get into a queue and then you get served.
Guy Martin: But in this case, it doesn't work like that.
Guy Martin: People are coming in expecting to wait in the same way that they've waited before, and then suddenly they see people skipping the queue in front of them, quote unquote.
Guy Martin: But they're not skipping the queue.
Guy Martin: It's a different waiting process.
Guy Martin: So explaining that is super critical, I would think.
Daniele Catalanotto: And explain the value of the wait.
Daniele Catalanotto: That's something that we can do.
Daniele Catalanotto: And explain the why is definitely also an important element.
Daniele Catalanotto: So if we summarize these different elements, so we have this selection process where we say, okay, not all wait is the same.
Daniele Catalanotto: So we can say, hey, once we identify that there is wait, is it useful?
Daniele Catalanotto: Yes, no.
Daniele Catalanotto: If no, can it be removed?
Daniele Catalanotto: Yes, no.
Daniele Catalanotto: If no, then what can we do to change the perception?
Daniele Catalanotto: And then in general, we can add to that, that if there is wait, we can always explain the why.
Daniele Catalanotto: And then when there is wait, we can then also use it as an opportunity to create relationship, to create knowledge, or also just to offer, you know, fun, amusement.
Daniele Catalanotto: So we can use it as a proxy for other things.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so getting there, I think, is just the understanding that not all wait is equal and we can be very creative with it.
Guy Martin: There's another waiting scenario, which I think benefits maybe the people on the business side as opposed to the customer side.
Guy Martin: And so there's two situations that I can think of.
Guy Martin: When you have an outage, for example, and someone's phoning up and they want to say, okay, well, my electricity is out or my TV is out or something like this.
Guy Martin: And normally you would expect to, okay, I've got to talk to someone and tell them that my TV is out.
Guy Martin: But if you put them on hold and there's a message on that on hold to say, we're aware of outages in your area and it'll be fixed within 30 minutes or we have people working on it, then that may already have saved you from hanging on.
Guy Martin: And you can say, oh, okay, well, I'll hang up.
Guy Martin: They know about it.
Guy Martin: It's being done.
Guy Martin: But if you got straight through to a person, you have to explain to them and they go, yes, we know about it, so blah, blah, blah.
Guy Martin: So in that case, maybe it's easier that you don't get through to a person straight away.
Guy Martin: So that little enforced waiting time of, you know, even if someone's available of 10, 20, 30 seconds is maybe okay.
Guy Martin: And then if your problem doesn't relate to that outage, then you can hang on and still talk to them.
Guy Martin: And it may be in that case that the customer service representatives are super busy anyway because they're dealing with this outage.
Guy Martin: So it reduces the demand on those representatives.
Guy Martin: So that was one thing that came to mind.
Guy Martin: The other thing I think is, and it's kind of a paradox, but it reminds me of the outage of teaching someone to fish as opposed to fishing for them.
Guy Martin: So when I've worked in service roles before and someone has phoned up or they've sent a message in saying, I need some help with this.
Guy Martin: And you go, okay, in a way, I feel that you should already know how to do this.
Guy Martin: I'm not saying this to them, but in my head, I'm saying that.
Guy Martin: So I'm actually just going to wait.
Guy Martin: I'm going to wait for half an hour before I respond to this and just see what happens, because in this case, it's not a life-threatening situation.
Guy Martin: It's something that they're just used to.
Guy Martin: I have a problem.
Guy Martin: I have to call support.
Guy Martin: But then making them wait for 30 minutes, they go, what can I do with that 30 minutes?
Guy Martin: Maybe I'll try and fix it myself.
Guy Martin: Or maybe I'll go back through the manual and see if there's anything I can do.
Guy Martin: And then in the end, 25 minutes later, I get another message saying, actually, I worked it out.
Guy Martin: Thank you anyway.
Guy Martin: So that enforced waiting has helped them work out the answer to the problem themselves, which I guess gives them a bit of satisfaction to say, they were pretty clever to figure it out themselves.
Guy Martin: They didn't have to wait for someone to get back.
Guy Martin: And the next time that happens, maybe they won't call support first thing.
Guy Martin: Maybe they'll just try again themselves.
Guy Martin: And so there's that education and that knowledge thing there.
Guy Martin: But if I had answered the call straight away and responded instantly, that opportunity may have never occurred.
Daniele Catalanotto: Indeed.
Daniele Catalanotto: And it asks the question, you know, what's the brand image that our waiting time gives?
Daniele Catalanotto: So for example, or service image too, you know.
Daniele Catalanotto: So for example, here in that case, I would assume this is a service that is very professional, you know, that wants people to be educated, that wants people to be able to solve the problem by themselves, because it might be something quite expensive, where we say, hey, we don't want you to be forced to call us for every problem and that we have to bill you for everything.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's not our interest.
Daniele Catalanotto: Our interest is that you can use what we offered in a way that's working for you, that you can manage it, and when we need it, we are always here for you.
Daniele Catalanotto: But we would love for you to feel independent.
Daniele Catalanotto: So once the service is that, then adding that weight is also kind of a brand thing where you're giving people this moment of, okay, there are not the people that are going to answer in the second.
Daniele Catalanotto: But if I'm at a luxury hotel where basically the brand image that I want to give is we are of your service for everything and anything because you pay so much that even if you want strawberries at 3 a.m.
Daniele Catalanotto: we're going to get you the strawberries at 3 a.m.
Daniele Catalanotto: We have a guy for that.
Daniele Catalanotto: No worries.
Daniele Catalanotto: And we answer the phone in the second.
Daniele Catalanotto: But then it's a brand image thing where it's not needed per se, but because you want people to have this image of you of being the pure servant, then obviously speed is extremely important.
Daniele Catalanotto: But when we say our service is not a servant, our service is a coach, a professional, a colleague, then an answer in the second will be like the Savior Syndrome.
Daniele Catalanotto: You're trying to step in the life of the person, fixing problems that you shouldn't solve, which the person will be very happy to have the solution for, but which will never create a healthy functioning relationship.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's all a question about what's the kind of relationship that we want to create.
Daniele Catalanotto: Again, there is no one answer to it, which is what makes it very interesting in one way.
Daniele Catalanotto: It shows also that there is an opportunity here to think about the branding of the waiting time.
Daniele Catalanotto: What's the image that we want to create?
Daniele Catalanotto: What's the relationship that we want to create?
Daniele Catalanotto: Do we want to be the servant that is here every time, every two seconds?
Daniele Catalanotto: Or do we want to be the big brother who comes when it's needed?
Daniele Catalanotto: Do we want to be the coach that guides, doesn't do the work for you, but guides?
Daniele Catalanotto: It's a very different relationship.
Guy Martin: Yeah.
Guy Martin: It's been a very interesting conversation journey through this idea about waiting because I came into it thinking, okay, we have to solve waiting.
Guy Martin: Waiting is a problem, but actually what we've discovered is it's not always a problem.
Guy Martin: Sometimes it's a benefit, and sometimes it's actually intentional.
Guy Martin: I guess from that perspective, it depends.
Guy Martin: It depends on the circumstances.
Guy Martin: But there's certainly some principles there that will help to guide us through and work out what is needed here, what is the best solution for this specific problem.
Guy Martin: It's not always going to be the same solution because it's not always the same problem.
Daniele Catalanotto: I think the one caveat that we have to bring or the one asterisk to that is it's not because it depends, but it should be an excuse to not do anything.
Daniele Catalanotto: I think this is the one point.
Daniele Catalanotto: You always can start with a few quick wins to show some respect for the waiting time of people by doing small things, and then you can do the deeper reflection.
Daniele Catalanotto: But I think there is a lot of space today for doing small things already and then having the long thinking and the more strategic conversation about the brand image that we want to give with waiting time.
Guy Martin: Thank you very much for the great conversation about waiting, and I hope we don't have to wait too long for the next episode.
Daniele Catalanotto: And if you have to, it's going to be a great reflection time.
Guy Martin: Absolutely.
Guy Martin: Thanks very much, Daniele.
Guy Martin: The Service Design Principles podcast is hosted by me, Guy Martin, with Daniele Catalanotto.
Guy Martin: Music by Mikhail Smusev.
Guy Martin: This is a production of Neolux Consulting.