Don't break the value of the good stuff with repeating it

Daniele Catalanotto
Jan 27, 2022
Another very first shitty draft about a service design principle on repeated actions

Coupons are great. When you get too many, they lose value, and the free stuff's excitement vanishes. A customer support guy who says sorry is great. But, when he tells you sorry every two seconds, it loses the strength, and you want to say: "Oh okay, shut up now and just do your job!". When my wife offers me chocolate every now and then, it's great! But, when she offers me chocolate every five minutes, I'm starting to think she secretly plans a murder by diabetes. You get the point.

There is a saying in French that goes like this: "Don't abuse the good stuff". The same goes for the lovely interactions we create in our services, products and organizations. 

To keep the human and authentic value of the interactions we offer, we should be careful not to provide too many of these interactions.

That's a problem I'm confronted with too.

When one of my workshop clients pays a big bill, I usually send a chocolate postcard to say thank you. But when I do several projects with this same client, I have to get creative. One time it will be chocolate, another time just a postcard, another time a little video. That gets my client in a state where he says: "How will he say thank you for this time?"

Based on that, I come to this conclusion:

So we can repeat the idea behind an interaction, but maybe the form should change every time.

A tweet about the overuse of coupons in automated email sequence by  Mike Volpe shared in 2018 inspired this principle: 

Like 1
Daniel Tuitt
Feb 1, 2022
Very good example. Companies need to move past making their consumers feel like numbers and only consider discounts as the only level of value to measure. Understanding how customers behaviour and knowing their purchasing habits is the key. Designing services that make it easy to return, speak to a human and discover new items is part of delighting customers.

I love what Plant Patch has done by turning its products into services with their plant hotel. Now this is how you create value and delight customers through new services -


 
Daniele Catalanotto
Feb 18, 2022
Wow love the plant hotel example! Thanks for sharing this one Daniel 🙌
Daniele Catalanotto
Mar 18, 2022
Here is the second draft of this principle

Don't repeat this lovely action too often

A customer support guy who says sorry is great. But, when he tells you sorry every two seconds, it loses the strength, and you want to say: "Oh okay, shut up now and just do your job!".

When my wife offers me chocolate every now and then, it's great! But, when she offers me chocolate every five minutes, I'm starting to think she secretly plans a murder by diabetes.

Coupons are great. When you get a discount code every month, they lose value, and the excitement of receiving a gift vanishes.

To keep the human and authentic value of our interactions, we should be careful not to repeat the same lovely action too many times.
When one of my clients pays a big bill, I usually send a chocolate postcard to say thank you. But when I do several projects with this same client, I have to get creative.

One time it will be chocolate, another time just a postcard, another time a little video. That gets my client in a state where he thinks: "How will he say "thank you" this time?"

We can repeat the idea behind an interaction, but it might be smart to change the form every time.


Little side notes

  • This is the second draft of this Service Design Principle.
  • I was able to reduce the lengths of this principle by about 14% compared to the first version.
  • I have a doubt about the title of this principle. And I'm exploring other short ways to express it. It first was "Don't break the value of the good stuff with repeating it", I then used  "Don't abuse of the good stuff", and now I think it should rather be "Don't repeat this lovely action too often". What do you think?
Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 31, 2022

The third draft of this Service Design Principle

A support guy who says sorry is great. But, when he tells you sorry every two seconds, it loses value, and you want to say: "Shut up now and just do your job!".

When my wife offers me chocolate now and then, it's great! But, when she offers me chocolate every five minutes, I think she is planning a murder by diabetes.

Coupons are great. When you get a discount code every month, they lose value, and the excitement of receiving a gift vanishes.

To keep the human value of the interactions, we should not repeat them too many times (1).

Let me ask you.

How can you bring variety to the lovely things you do for the people you serve?

Footnotes

(1) For example, when one of my clients pays a big bill, I usually send a chocolate postcard to say thank you. But when I do several projects with this same client, I have to get creative. One time it will be chocolate, another time just a postcard, another time a little video. That gets my client in a state where he thinks: "How will he say "thank you" this time?"

Daniele’s notes

  • This is the third draft of this principle.
  • I’ve reduced the length of this principle by 40 % compared to the previous draft.
  • I’ve added a conclusion question to help the reader turn this principle into action.