Genuine gratitude
In a world of automation, AI, and bots, don't fake your thank yous!
“Thank you for calling,” the robot says. “Your call is important to us.”
That has nothing to do with gratitude. When a robot says that your call is important to a business that has chosen to automate a guest service function, that business is thinking more about what’s important to them than what’s important to you.
Genuine gratitude is a statement of caring. Automated gratitude is not.
Don’t be fooled.
The automated survey you get after a trip, hotel stay, or restaurant you booked online always starts with “Thanks” but the thanks isn’t genuine gratitude for your custom. The “thank you” is for the data they collect from you.
The emails are from automated systems that have no feelings. They often come from email addresses you cannot reply to and your response will likely also be handled by an automated system.
Any thank you that is written by a bot, isn’t genuine, even if the bot pretends to have a name and a personality.
Genuine gratitude can only be shown by people.
Programming systems to feign gratitude to encourage customers to fill out surveys and collect data that benefits the business more than the customer is not genuine gratitude.
Genuine gratitude is about the customer.
When gratitude is simulated by an automated system, it will easily lead to frustration if the promises it makes are not kept.
Consider this:
When you call customer service and the automated answering service thanks you and tells you how important your call is, how do you feel 20 minutes later when you’re still on hold?
How do you feel a few hours later when the robot continues to thank you and claim that your call is important?
How do you feel when, after navigating through an endless menu of options, you end up back at the main menu?
When gratitude is used as a hook to make you think a company cares, its meaning becomes diluted.
True gratitude, on the other hand, can build powerful connections, memories, and long-term loyalty.
It’s genuinely good for people and it’s good for business!
Stay safe, Always Care
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Genuine gratitude is so important to us that we dedicated an entire chapter to it in our book, “Spin the Bottle Service - Hospitality in the Age of AI”.
We help hospitality businesses make jobs more meaningful and guest experiences more memorable by helping you make the most of the biggest differentiator you have – your people!
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