If it takes five minutes, do it now.
A Service Design Principle to know when to fix something right away and when to make come back later.
I need to change the battery of my watch. So I go to a tiny watch repair shop. The person at the counter tells me it’s something quick to do. So she does it right away. After five minutes, I have a new battery in my watch. I’m impressed. Usually, in these shops, you have to leave your watch at the shop and come back a few hours or even days later.
This staff member understands well that it takes more time to ask for my personal information, enter the watch in a database to track it and then do the repair later than doing it right away. Therefore the worker and I saved precious time and even some precious mental energy (2).
This interaction reminds me of the two-minute rule by David Allen (1), and we can adapt it to the world of Service Design like this:
If you can solve a customer or user issue in the next five minutes, do it with the person right away.
You might say: “five minutes can feel like a long waiting time”. So how do you turn these five minutes into a less frustrating waiting time? Do what the watch repair person did: think aloud. For example, she said: “Let’s open that thing... Hmmm... Okay, the old battery is healthy... Let’s recycle it...” You get the idea.
By thinking aloud, the staff member allows you to see the behind-the-scenes. This makes the waiting time more interesting, and therefore it feels shorter.
So let me ask you:
Are there tasks that you often delay in your service? Which tasks could you do right away to save time for the user and your staff?
Footnotes
(1) This rule says that if you receive a new task within two minutes, it might be better to do it right away instead of adding it to your do list system. Indeed, the time you’ll need to add it to your system and the time you’ll need later to remind yourself what this was all about is more than two minutes.
(2) Psychology researchers and productivity experts seem to agree that switching contexts costs a lot of mental energy. As here, the worker doesn’t have to change context. Instead, he will end the day having used less mental energy and might feel less burned out.
Daniele’s personal notes
- You just read the second draft of this Service Design Principle.
- The length of this principle has been reduced by 64% compared to the first draft.
- Once improved 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.
It may lead to serious issues if not balanced with other principles, namely on time management, priority setting and task scheduling.
What are the dangers of tackling every task that comes along at once? Your focus for longer tasks is disrupted and important larger tasks are continually pushed to a later day.
So there's a strong counter-principle to the "2-minute rule": Keep your priorities straight. This could be as simple as old-school Eisenhower matrix or something more sophisticated Kanban board.
Some service providers - from your local watch shop to dentists, vaccine centers and fast food shops - actually have lanes or time slots specifically for walk-ins.
This allows for "batching" of small, transactional, low-focus tasks which is another time-tested organization principle for service workers. So block an hour every day for e-mail inquiries or, in this case, changing batteries.
All on the condition that you have enough work overall. If you're bored, you can always tackle according to the FIFO or FCFS principle: First In First Out / First come, first served.
I realize I'm not giving a good alternative to the stated principle, and my argument apply mostly for the provider, not the customer. And for customers, getting something done is fantastic. But you may end up favoring certain customers (small, somewhat urgent tasks) over others (longer tasks but also time-constrained).
I think it also neatly ties in with the "Let me know why others come before me" principle, so if a customer needs to wait for a small tasks to be completed, tell him it's going to take 25 min because there's prior tasks to be finished.
It's a welcome nuance that will many will benefit from as I'll link each principle to the community page with all comments to read additional stories and counter-arguments ;)
As you say, you can combine this idea well with other principles like "Let me know why others come before me" when you run a more complex service ;)
In the case of this small watch repair shop, they did it smartly. They ask the customer:
Does that answer your question?
The third draft of this Service Design Principle
Footnotes
Daniele’s notes