 In this episode we'll be talking about three things, designing for different service rhythms, how social relationships influence the design of services, and finally the balance between security, trust and convenience. And here is today's guest. This is Marcus Luy, welcome to the Service Design Show. Hi guys, my name is Marc Fontijn and welcome to a new episode of the Service Design Show. This show where you get to learn about some of the world's best service designers are currently thinking about, so you can use that knowledge to transform services and businesses all around the world to become more human-centered and eventually more successful. We bring you a new episode every two weeks on Thursday, so be sure to subscribe if you don't want to miss anything. My guest in this episode is Marcus Luy. Marcus is currently the Group Design Director at Fjord in Hong Kong and he told me that he uses the experience he gained through his passion for traveling in his day-to-day work. In the next 30 minutes we'll be talking about designing for different service rhythms, how social relationships influence the design of services, and finally the balance between security, trust and convenience. If you want to fast-forward to one of these topics, check out the episode guide down below in the description or just stick around and enjoy the whole episode. For now, let's jump right in. Welcome to the show, Marcus. Thanks for having me, Marc. It's your, you must have one of the most amazing backdrops I've seen on the show. It's like a thunderstorm in Hong Kong, right? Indeed it is, a thunderstorm brewing on a Friday afternoon. Oh man, it's like lightning and thunder. Wow. Cool. I have the background of the scenic U-Track here on the show. So that matches. Marcus, awesome to have you and like I always ask the guests, the very first question is when did you meet with service design? What was your first encounter with service design? Okay, that's quite an interesting, because there isn't a very formal point. I think I went into service design quite organically, started off as an industrial designer and I've also worked in the brand world. And gradually, I think a lot of my work ended up being called brand experiences, which to me is almost like a bit of a precursor to service design, simply because I worked on a lot of work in retail, a lot of work that started going beyond retail and therefore got called, well, multi-disciplinary design. I think when the first time I came across the notion of service design was when I was working as a consultant in Shanghai. And first we did a lot of product development around 2009, 2010. And then a couple of years after that, we reached a very immediate and very recognizable inflection point. Clients are coming to us asking for us to design services for them. And therefore, as a point of difference from product design, it became service design. And how long was that ago? That was round about, well, 2011, I would say, formally, that the work that I've done that reflected service design, it's like 2006. Yeah, yeah. And that's the story, I guess, of all the guests on the show so far. People have been doing service design before it had a name. That's the interesting point. Marcus, you've sent me three very interesting topics that I think none of them has been on the show yet. So I'm really curious to hear your story about them. I've sent you a few question starters and we'll co-create the questions as we go along, right? Good. I'll pick the first topic and it's up to you to pick a question starter that goes along with this one. And this first topic is called urban density and perception of time. Is there a question starter that goes along with this one? Okay, I would pick why for this. Why does that have to do? Why does urban density and perception of time have to do with service design? Please enlighten us. Well, I chose this backdrop partly to illustrate. I work out of, certainly and most definitively, the most highly dense, you know, high density city in the world and a very vertical one. And with that in context also, I've worked on certain projects that go across different cities in Asia. As an example, between Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, I often say Beijing, if you look at it as a gesture, as a city is this. Shanghai is somewhere like that. Hong Kong is this. It's a very, very vertical city. And why I say it has a lot to do with service design. And I'll talk a little bit about time also is each of these cities have a different density. Each of these cities have a different perception of time. With Hong Kong being definitely, it's one of the few cities that make New York look slow, okay, in the world. And so it has absolutely everything to do with service design, simply because it affects the frequency at which people engage in media or, for example, shopping or food doesn't need to be seeked out. It comes to you because there's a drugstore in every block. There's food that comes to you 24 seven. So that, to me, has everything to do with urban density because things are just so easy in a place in Hong Kong and so easily accessible physically. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really interesting. So designing a service. So designing, while designing a service, time is a crucial aspect. Of course it is, but it really impacts how you design the same service across cities that have a different density. Is that what you're saying? Certainly different densities, as well as a different rhythm. Just to give you an example in Hong Kong, I could be crossing the harbor three times a day in the subway without even thinking about it because all these things work like clockwork. The place is, in a way, I started driving a couple of months ago and I realized how short the distances are compared to Sydney or LA, you know, different cities I've lived in. Therefore, the expectation of things just being delivered to you or things being accessible to you or how long it takes, how much downtime you have in between destinations is completely different. I really like the term service written, that's a great term. Yeah. I think that's very, very core of how you design a service simply because it changes the fundamental expectations of customers. Anything else? Yeah, and how does that influence your own work? So how do you incorporate this in your daily work? Well, when it comes to service design, then it has to do with how you manage customers' expectations. There are certain things that systems, you know, backend systems create limitations of how soon things could be done. And if you look at that also as against the, I guess, the expectations from the customer side, how instant something needs to be, then you find that delta in between on how you need to manage it. On the other side, you also have to figure out whether that service is being helpful or being too intrusive in managing people's expectations. So that's something that we could talk about in a bit, but I think the expectation of the rhythm and the time, how instantaneous something is and how, I guess, ubiquitous something is. Just to give you an example, the octopus cart in Hong Kong is to me one of the really interesting innovations for this city. I use this for pretty much- It's a public transport cart, I guess, right? Well, it's much more than the oyster in London, for example. The oyster in London is a public transportation cart. This cart allows me to open the door at my apartment complex. It allows me to open the door at my office. It gets me through public car parks. I pay with it. And yet my data is hardly, it's not a credit card. It's a cash card. It's an RFID technology card. So all of these things have become so ubiquitous that one cart actually gets you through everything. And that's also made possible through the urban density and the footfall for the infrastructure to support that many people using it at the same time. So I think this is one of those things that is very interesting that you could push it to that level of extreme in Hong Kong. One final question around this topic is, I'm curious, how do these rhythms, the slow and the very fast-paced rhythms, influence each other or are they really separate? I would say, well, in Hong Kong in particular, it's one of those, you know, the cliche of being a city that never sleeps, you know, is so appropriate in Hong Kong. And I think this is where we understand the needs of the customers. But at the same time, we also need to look on the other side is, when is it appropriate to leave them alone, to actually take away the stimuli. So I think this is where both sides need to be considered and therefore, fast time and slow time. I mean, a really good example when you consider a service design is, it's fast food, really fast food in a city like Hong Kong. Yes, it's fast to obtain. It needs to be fast for transaction. But it doesn't necessarily mean you have to eat it fast. Exactly. It's the same customer journey, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Super interesting, but we have to move on to the second topic. And I guess it will probably relate somehow. And the second topic is social relationships and service. So is there a question starter that you have that fits with this one? I guess, how much? How much do we have to consider social relationships and service design? Hmm, please explain. OK, Eva, yeah. OK, so I would say, OK, service design is a really core, I think the whole notion of service in Asia, obviously, is so fundamental to the culture way before the whole notion of service design came about in Asia. Service is a very inherent part of the culture about delivering something to help people along something. That's not a new notion. I think putting the word design against it is one of those things that was a relatively recent phenomenon. And I think one piece that has been a real burning question for me in every service design project is what do people actually expect as a relationship to the service itself? What I mean by that is, and I think a lot of guests, you have interviewed talk about hierarchy and social relationship in a lot of especially each Asian culture. So I would say greater China, Japan, Korea, all of which have a confusion base in the culture that also starts to put services and people or people and people or brands and people, organizations and people, into immediately they need to sort out or the culture tends to put things at a hierarchy. So that also has to do with like what type of relationship you built through this service. And if you talk about design, ultimately, I can give an example of this hierarchy in relationship to services. OK, so if you look at, say, a relatively transactional service like food delivery, as against, for example, and I'm sure this has to do and this is applicable across a lot of different cultures and markets, but especially important to consider, you know, for example, food delivery against personal banking, for example, one by very nature needs to be very high touch because the service provider is being cast in a role as literally someone who serves this client. In the other piece, even though it's service again, but it's reduced to a much more transactional sort of dynamic because you might only see this guy once and you see him for 30 seconds. So I think this is where it really when we're designing service, it needs to be considering how you pitch and how you position this service against its audience or against different tiers of its audience. And then if that is actually well defined, then everything else gets much clearer when you start designing your service. So have you seen examples where this relationship or there was a mismatch in this relationship by design or by accident? Yeah, well, I think this is one of those cases where global brands trying to localize or adapt themselves in different Asian markets and I've worked years ago on an optical retail project. That was before a lot of digital tools were available, but beginning to happen. And back in the Australian context, basically the optician and the customer sit side by side and they talk across the mirror. And I had an instinct that felt like that doesn't work in Hong Kong and in many parts of Asia, simply because you are casting your service consultant as an equal. So, you know, and they're talking through the mirror, so they're not actually having to comment. So that is one of those pieces where we ended up needing to reconfigure that face-to-face relationships that still allows the functional part of this optician, you know, helping the customer put on their glasses. But we actually have to create a little bit of a physical barrier to actually make sure this personal space, you know, back to the whole point of urban density, this personal space is not being intruded and in a way the server versus customer relationship is well-defined. Super interesting. And I can see that people who don't have the context of Asia, for instance, and only use the Western mindset to design service will have a very hard time adopting to, for instance, creating or designing services in China. I would say, yes, a lot of these are very, very subtle nuances. You know, one really great quote from one of the research respondents on this particular project with us. So I cannot allow any chance of my knees touching another man other than my husband. You know, that is such a cultural insight to me. And then likewise, when you have when you have very high, you know, inherently digital services, how do you then on the other extreme is re-established a personality of the service? How the human element of the service? Super interesting stuff. And I don't see that many designers talking and thinking about social relationships, inservices that explicitly. What is your view on that? Should we do that more? Well, I think, to me, it's almost something that's inherent in your own culture, you know, regardless of what type of service you're providing, whether it's digital or physical or a combination of both. To me, that is almost something that is it runs parallel. That is one of those things I constantly challenge my teams, especially within Asia. I think this is where that area about personal relationships often come to the fore in adapting, established service platforms to this market or even if you're actually starting from zero. And I guess the thing and the trick here is your own culture is so much baked into your personality that when you're designing a service for your own culture, you don't even notice the social relationships, right? But once you start to go abroad and notice how that social relationship differs in other contexts, then you sort of start to become aware how it is in your own culture, I guess, right? Absolutely. And I also want to make, you know, just, I guess, make the point that we oftentimes talk about Asia as one homogenous culture, but it's not. So, you know, you've got the difference between even, for example, Japan is one society where service is casted in with very specific expectations. And then you've got mainland China and different parts of mainland China versus Hong Kong, where speed is such a, you know, important topic. So all of this I'm trying to also sort of cast the fact that Asia is a whole spectrum also in and of itself. Marcus, super interesting again. But let's move on to the third topic. And I guess this is something that hasn't been on the show yet. And the third topic is called security trust and convenience, which the question starter goes along with this one. Yep, I would say how far. So how far can we go in keeping our customers safe and secure without compromising too much of their convenience? How do you tread this balance? And I think this is something that comes across all the time. And how far how far is too far in your perception? Well, I think if something that has to do with keeping a customer secure actually prevents them from engaging that service or actually reduces their desire or their motivation to work with that service, that's too far because you are effectively shooting yourself in the foot as a business. Right. So I think there is oftentimes that again, that that delta between the the interest of the service, the interest of the customer in how do you make that compromise? And I think it has a lot to do also and within the Asian context, quite important is a lot of the trust actually happens and builds when you are actually serving that customer through your service design. Service design is not only about enabling a transaction or enabling someone to functionally do something. It's if every bit of service transaction or service design is building a little bit more towards the trust of the customer with that brand. But then the one moment you either breach the trust or through your security, you severely inconvenience the customer. It's all gone. So I think this is where that tension lies is how do we actually keep that balance? And I think a lot of the mitigation work needs to happen in how you how you set up the expectations to begin with. And again, can you give an example of is there what is a good example of setting good expectations for this? OK, as an example is, say, if you are a digital business and for some reason you've seen normal activities with this account and the company decides to shut them, you know, should temporarily shut this member down. How do you communicate to this member? This member may be or this customer may be an actual fraud or they may be completely innocent. So that email or whatever that communication needs to be needs to actually and this is a real life example is it needs to explain that whether you're innocent or you're fraudulent. This is actually if you're an innocent customer, this is for your own interest. This is for your own safety and what needs to be done. And we apologize for the inconvenience. Please do X, Y and Z to unlock your account. So I think being proactive is important. I think just being sort of when something happens, it's already sometimes is already too late. So you need to actually be proactive and you need to somewhat educate customers. Like, yeah, maybe educating why you're doing stuff before it actually happens. Is it? Exactly, exactly. So it's very much about being preemptive as well as being consistent in what you might do offline versus what you as a brand do online. A lot of times different touchpoints for brands actually create contradictions between themselves. Like? Well, say if you are saying something on a website. Promising that it's really easy. And yet when the real experience is not exactly easy, is it worse that you said it? It's easy to begin with. I think that's where you actually need to temper that expectation and do not overpromise because when you can't deliver, it's worse than not saying it at all. Yeah. How does this impact? Because I can really easily relate to this with digital services, online services. But how does this relate, for instance, to the more traditional physical services? Okay. As an example, again, in a lot of retail environments, and I think this is somewhere where the EQ of the actual service staff actually come in really important. But say if you have to physically design a store, the traditional mode for some stores, say, example, enable or they encourage the staff to circulate, you know, conventional wisdom for the staff to circulate and engage with the customer within that first three meters when they walk in. But with, for example, a market like Hong Kong, you actually, in some cases, want to put the staff at the back third of the whole store so that they allow the customers to browse because Hong Kong customers are mature, they're very confident. You leave them alone. But at the same time, the moment they need help, you have to have that line of sight really quickly and enable your staff to actually get to them within a half a minute. What is your biggest question around this topic? You said, how do we keep the balance? Is that the question that keeps you awake around this topic? I think a lot of these things definitely have a lot of tension. They sound so contradictory. You know, you want to keep your customers secure and safe, but you want to give them, they need convenience. I mean, all of us have fallen victim of forgetting a password or having too many passwords at the same time. It's also about being efficient with a transaction or with an experience, but at the same time really managing their expectations along the way and making sure that it's more than a transaction. You at least give them a smile so that they would come back again. All of that is about building a little bit stronger relationship, building that trust with the customer. So how much is too much sometimes? And that's there in lies of difference in markets. In some markets, even in Asia, you could talk more. In some other markets, you want to be much more cut and dry. I think this is typically a topic that designers will excel at. And I think this is typically a topic that requires some prototyping, right? Absolutely. So we're heading towards the end of the show already and I always have two questions. And the first question is for you. This is your opportunity to ask the people who are viewing or listening to this episode a question. What would you like to ask the audience? OK, my question would be probably about design thinking. And this is something that is an interesting topic. Having the word design thinking being used in Asia, it's beginning to take root. But how much design thinking? How much do we want to actually belabor this term? On the one side, we want to promote it because it is about keeping the interests of the user in the center. But at the same time, it could also end up with some kind of orthodoxy that people just overuse it or misuse it, right? And I think it's already happening. The moment it's landed on the front page of the Harvard Business Review, then that was the moment things changed. Absolutely. And I think within the Asian context, I think where the risk is, it becomes an orthodoxy or it becomes a recipe book that people just see that as a magic recipe to solve all problems. So actually, what would the question be for the viewers? OK, so how much are we going to actually banter with the word design thinking? What is the limit? How far would we go in using that word? Or should we move on? We become too enamored with that word as practitioners. That's an awesome question. Are we being lazy in using that as a shortcut also? Are we getting too dependent on that word? And I think it's, well, let's leave it up to the viewers and listeners to comment on that. Oh, great question. So Marcus, this was it for this episode. And the thunderstorm seems to have passed in the last 30 minutes. Thanks for your time. Thanks for sharing your ideas. You're very welcome. Very welcome. Thank you for having me. So what are your thoughts about the topics we've just discussed with Marcus? Let us know down below in the comments. This show is all about helping you to become a better service designer so you can make a bigger impact on the world around us. If this is your first time here and you'd like to see more interviews with service design pioneers, be sure to check out some of the best episodes and don't forget to subscribe to the channel. I'll see you in two weeks time for a new episode. And for now, thanks for watching.