Show me you care in different ways

Daniele Catalanotto
Mar 2, 2022
A Service Design Principle about how to show interest to customers and team members 

In the book “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate” Gary Chapman lists 5 ways to express love. Interestingly it seems that everyone is a bit different when it comes to what sign of love works best for each one of us. Some feel loved when you do something to help them out. And other won’t see that as a sign of love but would react much stronger to a lovely word that recognizes a quality of the person.

When it comes to services I have the feeling that many organizations use only one way to express their love for their customers, partners or employees: gift giving.

But if the hypothesis of Gary Chapman is right, it would mean that many people would never recognize a gift as a “true sign of appreciation or love”.

The original 5 love languages of Gary are:

  1. words of affirmation
  2. quality time
  3. receiving gifts
  4. acts of service
  5. and physical touch

I think all work well for services too. Maybe the last one should just be adapted to “physical interactions”.

So when wanting to show appreciation to a customer or an employee we should remember this:

Don’t always show appreciation only with gifts. Use different ways to do it. Offer time. Offer words of appreciation. Do something practical to help out. Or provide a physical interaction like a good old hand shake or a bow.


Alternate titles

I'm not sure yet about the title of this principle, here a few other ideas:
  1. Use different love languages with your staff and customers
  2. Show me you care in different ways
  3. Show you love me in different ways
  4. Show you love me in a way that I understand


Little side notes

  • This is the very first shitty draft for this new Service Design Principle.
  • Once adapted, even more, this principle will be part of the book "Service Design Principles 201-300"
  • As always comments and feedbacks to improve this principle are welcome
  • If you have a personal story that goes in that direction it would also help if you share it 

5 comments

Patrick Marcelissen
May 16, 2022
I would suggest to shorten the first sentence leave "How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate". 
now it's to long... 

And other won’t -> others.
title 

Show me you care in different ways is fine in my point of view
Daniele Catalanotto
Jun 4, 2022
Thanks for the suggestion Patrick :) 
Daniele Catalanotto
Aug 13, 2022
The second draft of this principle

In the book “The Five Love Languages”, Gary Chapman lists five ways to express love. Gary explains that some feel love when you do something to help them out. Others won’t see that as a sign of love. They would react much stronger to a lovely word that recognises one of their qualities.

I feel that many services use only one way to express their love to the humans they interact with: gifts. So, if Gary is correct, it means that many people never feel loved by the services they use.

Gary's five love languages are:

  1. words of affirmation
  2. quality time
  3. receiving gifts
  4. acts of service
  5. and physical touch
All could work well for services, too (1). So let me ask you this:

What's one way to show love that you don't use today? How could you use it to show appreciation for your customers or employees?

Footnotes

(1) Maybe we need to adapt "physical touch" into “physical interactions” to make it more practical.

Daniele's personal notes

  • This is the second draft of this Service Design Principle
  • I reduced the length of this Service Design Principle (outside of the footnotes) by 37.55%.
  • Thanks to Patrick Marcelissen for suggesting two changes I've implemented
Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 30, 2022

The third draft of this Service Design Principle

Gary Chapman lists five ways to express love in the book “The Five Love Languages” (1). He explains that people don’t feel loved in the some way. For example, some feel love when you help them. Others feel loved when you recognise their qualities.

Many services use only one way to express their love to the humans they interact with: gifts. So, if Gary is correct, many people never feel that love.

Gary’s five love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.

Organisations can use them too (2). So let me ask you this:

What’s one way to show love that you don’t use today? How could you use it to show appreciation for your customers or employees?

Footnotes

(1) Gary Chapman (1992). The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Northfield Publishing. Available at https://extra.swissinnovation.academy/CB3M accessed 20 October 2022.

(1) Maybe we need to adapt "physical touch" into “physical interactions” to make it more practical.

Daniele’s notes

  • This is the third draft of this principle.
  • I’ve reduced the length of this principle by 14 % compared to the previous draft.