Open the customer's cage

Daniele Catalanotto
Aug 30, 2022
A Service Design Principle to build trust

A good friend told me this little parable:

It's only when you open the cage of your bird that you'll know if he is really yours. If the bird flies out and never comes back, he stays just because of the cage. But, if he flies out and comes back, you two really have a thing.

I feel the same goes for the relationships we have with our customers. Make it easy for them to leave you, and even propose it! Then, if the customers stay, you'll know that there is more here. You are sure that this is more than just a transactional relationship.

So let me ask you this:

Stay customers with you because they are locked in? Or are customers with you for the good reasons? Because they are continuously committed to the relation between you and them.

Daniele's personal notes

  • This is the second draft of this Service Design Principle.
  • This length of this principle has been reduced by 14% compared to the first draft.
  • Once adapted, even more, this principle could be part of the book "Service Design Principles 201-300"
  • As always feel free to share comments, feedback or personal stories to improve this principle.
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Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 21, 2022

The third draft of this Service Design Principle

Don’t lock me in

A good friend told me this little parable.

“It’s only when you open the cage of your bird that you’ll know if he is really yours. If the bird flies out and never returns, he stays just because of the cage. But, if he flies out and comes back, you two really have a thing. “

I feel the same goes for the relationships we have with our customers. Make it easy for them to leave you. You can even propose it (1)! For example, tools like Ghost, Podia and others make it easy for you to export your customer data from one tool to the other (2).

So when the customers stay, you’ll know that it’s because they love the service. And if customers leave in mass, it’s good feedback! You need to improve your service.

So let me ask you this:

How can you unlock customers from your service? How can you make it easy for people to leave and transition to a competitor?

Footnotes

(1) See principle “Ask me if I want to continue with you” from this same book.

(2) A shared movement for independent subscription data. Open Subscription Platforms. Available at https://extra.swissinnovation.academy/lvGB accessed 21 October 2022.

Daniele’s notes

  • This is the third draft of this principle.
  • I’ve added two additional references
  • I’ve added a conclusion question
  • I rewrote parts of this principle to take an additional and complementary angle to the principle “Ask me if I want to continue with you”. In this idea I’ve also changed the title to “Don’t lock me in”
  • That’s why this version is 17% longer than the previous draft.
Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 21, 2022
Here are the feedback pieces I used to rework this principle. The big question for me was if I had to merge this principle with the principle “Ask me if I want to continue with you”. or not.

The feedback that said "Merge them."



The feed back that said, "Don't merge them"



In the end, I found value in creating more differences between them and the suggestion that people shared really helped me.