A Service Design Principle on how to reduce the number of interaction points and still inform well your customers.
This principle is inspired by a story shared by community member Guy Martin.

You’re buying some special sausage from your local butcher. Yummy! He gives you a tip to cook well this specific sausage. You arrive home, and obviously… you don’t remember the advice. You think: “what could go wrong? It’s just a sausage like any other!” So you cook the sausage as you usually do, and… it tastes like shit!

This new exciting and costly meal is a big disappointment because you couldn’t remember the tip of your butcher. Was it your fault, or could the butcher help more?

Guy Martin (1) went through a similar situation, but happily for him, his butcher is clever and has an inspiring way to fix this problem! One day as Guy is buying some special meat. The butcher gives him advice about how to cook it. The smart butcher doesn’t stop there. He makes sure that the tip is also printed directly on the receipt. Smart!

A photo Guy Martin shared with the receipt from his butcher.

The way the butcher serves Guy Martin is smart. It’s smart because Guy doesn’t have to remember the advice. It’s also smart because it builds on what’s already there. So the butcher doesn’t overwhelm our friend Guy with a new tool he has to learn. Finally, it’s smart because it’s cheap as there is no need for the butcher to spend time and money building something completely new.

Sometimes I feel that as service creators, we try to add a new touchpoint or way of interacting with every further information. It’s as if you went to a restaurant and received a new cutlery tool for every new dish. Sure it sometimes makes sense. But imagine having 12 forks and 12 knives on your table. That would be a bit overwhelming.

There are already so many interaction moments, emails, papers, and bills we share with our users and staff.

Maybe we don’t need to add another interaction but just make the ones we already have a bit smarter and valuable.

So let me ask you: how can you help your users remember the precious information you share?

What’s something you already give where you could place tips and advice?

(1) A big thank you to Guy Martin for having shared with the community of co-creators the service experience that inspired this Service Design principle.

Alternative titles

Here a few ideas of alternative titles for this principle:

1. Put the information in the paper I already have: the original title, might be too focused on the receipt thing when it can be used for other mediums too.

2. Don't add an extra interaction: gives a broader meaning to the story, I think I'll go with this one for now.

If you have ideas of a better title, let me know.

Little side notes

• This principle is based on a story shared by Guy Martin from which we extracted together several different principles. Thanks Guy for sharing such an inspiring tip!

• This is the first draft of this Service Design Principle.

• Once adapted, even more, this principle will 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.