There is something special about being told face to face, ‘Have a nice day.’ by someone who genuinely and generously believes that you and everyone else they serve is actually entitled to one. They smile; you smile, replying with feeling, ‘and you too.’ For a brief moment in time your hope in humanity is restored through this simple and freely exchanged ritual of good will.
Valued For Your Custom Only
Choose one of the following options. Dial in your customer number followed by the hash key. Hold the line please. We have almost become anaesthetised to the repeated assertion by businesses that they value our custom while keeping us waiting for hours on the phone to talk to one of their operators. When the call is finally about to be answered we are told that it may be monitored for training purposes. Whose training? If these businesses are constantly training new people to answer phones why aren’t the calls being answered more quickly? Are we deliberately being set up to be annoyed and frustrated so that operators learn to deal with people in these sorts of emotional states early in their training? Is this a conspiracy by businesses and internet providers to ensure that people will be discouraged from using phones in favour of less labour and cost intensive online customer enquiry services?
A Feeble Attempt at Humanising the Mechanical
Is anyone reading this old enough to remember real bank tellers? For a short time one of the major banks here in Australia had pictures of smiling service people as the backgrounds for their ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) screens. A slide of a personable young woman would greet you with a smile and by means of speech bubbles and hand gestures, on successive slides, guide you through the process of making a transaction. Please noooooo! Are talking video heads next? I admit that automatic teller machines are convenient and useful and have their place but something in me balks at the prospect of dealing with a machine that pretends to be a human being with my best interests at heart. Some would argue that banks generally have never had much to do with humanity anyway.
The Inestimable Value of Small Talk
It is a bit of a paradox that modern communication devices have been a major cause of the decline in our ability to communicate through small talk. Small talk or casual conversation is a less threatening means of practicing for the real thing. This is due to the fact that it is generally conducted with total strangers and usually contains no immediately discernible vital exchange of information. There is however a vital exchange going on, the small and tentative tendrils of human connection are seeking a hand hold. Even the slightest connection made identifies both parties as human with all the empathy and understanding that designation normally entails. This is why robots are incapable of doing small talk convincingly and why small talk can still be held up as something that defines our humanity. Being told to ‘Have a nice day’ by someone who knows the difference between a nice day and a totally lousy one always works for me. Even though it may take a little more time and effort, small talk and customer service need to go hand in hand. Otherwise we might just as well leave it to the automatons.
Steve Kelly - Steve has provided professional development to teachers in the use of new technologies in education.
Join the Conversation