Thank you? Let’s open a support ticket for that.

I forgot most of the polite manners and etiquette my parents and teachers desperately tried to teach me during my younger years. But I still remember to say “thank you”. Maybe it was because Gary Vaynerchuk reminded me with his latest book The Thank You Economy, but I still try to say thank you every time someone helps me. When the waiter brings me my cutlery. When a colleague helps me out. When someone answers my silly questions on Twitter. When my travel agency Sunweb proactively called me to help me rebook my vacation because of the Egyptian riots.

So whenever a company answers one of my silly helpdesk questions, I tend to reply with “thank you”.

And their reply usually is along the lines of:

Which pretty much sucks out all my goodwill to write a thank you note to any company ever again. Especially with the amount of silly questions I tend to ask and the amount of thank yous I need to thank all those hardworking customer support reps who answer them.

Yes, tools like Zendesk and Get Satisfaction made it simple and efficient to help customers. I don’t mind getting a semi-automatic answer as long as it’s correct and fast. But please, act human. And don’t open a support ticket every time I appreciate what you did.

It is a small and simple addition to your automated customer support system. But it ensures you of many future thank yous. As proven by a Zappos support ticket that did exactly that.

Written in 2011, left as it was. Read it with that date in mind. Where I took it later: Automagic: nine automated mails done right.

Original: Thank you? Let’s open a support ticket for that., 4 March 2011. Historical links may no longer work.