別讓溫情氾濫 企業的首要目標不是小恩小義

One day in 1995, back when the land line and the postage stamp were enjoying their last hurrah, I put in a call to directory inquiries. In those days, if you didn’t know a phone number, you dialled 192 and a human being looked it up and read it out to you. On that particular day, the woman at the other end answered the phone with: “Directories, Michelle speaking.”

1995年，在那個固定電話和郵票正享受最後狂歡的時代，有一天我給查號臺打了個電話。當時，如果你不知道一個電話號碼，你可以撥打192，會有人爲你查到相應電話號碼並念給你聽。那天，電話另一頭那位女士的應答是：“查號臺，米歇爾(Michelle)爲您服務。”

Perplexed, I asked why she had just told me her name. She said it was a new policy designed to make the service More personal. How vulgar, I thought. How gratuitously chummy. How American. I turned to the hulking cathode ray tube that sat on my desk and bashed out a column protesting that I didn’t want personal. I just wanted a phone number.

這個應答把我弄懵了，我問她爲什麼要告訴我她的名字，她說這是一項新政策，旨在使服務更人性化。當時我想，這種做法真是太沒品位，太溫情氾濫，太美國化了。我轉身打開書桌上笨重的日光燈，攢出一篇專欄文章，抗議說我不想要“人性化”服務。我要的只是個電話號碼。

After nearly two decades spent bobbing about on the rising tide of gratuitous chumminess, I no longer especially mind when people like Michelle introduce themselves. There are bigger things to worry about.

近20年來這種溫情氾濫的做法越來越流行，到如今，對於米歇爾這類做自我介紹的人，我不會那麼在意了——還有許多更重要的事讓人操心呢。

The other day I bought a grey dress on eBay. When it arrived (a little too big and frumpy, but that’s always the danger with eBay) a card fell out. “We hope you had a nice and relaxing holiday break and enjoy the new dress you’ve purchased,” it said. “Have an awesome week and we look forward to serving you again in the near future. Simon and Laurie.” Things have gone rather wrong, I reflected, when Simon and Laurie, whom I have never met or even heard of, are more solicitous about my happiness and wellbeing than members of my own family.

那天，我在eBay上買了件灰色外衣。衣服送到時，我發現尺碼有點大，樣式還有點過時。不過在eBay上買東西，總是要冒這種風險的。然而，打開包裝時一張卡片掉了出來。上面寫道：“祝您度過美妙、輕鬆的假期，希望您喜歡您剛剛購買的新衣服。”接着，卡片上寫道：“祝您擁有精彩至極的一週，期待着在不久的將來能再次爲您服務。西蒙(Simon)和勞裏(Laurie)敬上。”事後回想，令事情變得更糟的是，西蒙和勞裏這兩位陌生人——我從來沒見過他們，也沒聽說過他們的名字——竟然比我的家人更關心我的快樂和健康。

A couple of days later I was online trying to cancel my subscription to Sky Go and found myself having a “Live Chat”, which involves typing words into a bubble. “Hello Lucy. How are you today? ;)” Ajay typed. “Fine,” I typed back. “Cool! ;) I’m certain I can help you with this.”

幾天後，我上網想取消在Sky Go的訂閱，結果經歷了一次“在線聊天”。在這個過程中，輸入的語句會顯示爲一個一個的泡泡。“你好露西，今天感覺如何？;)”阿杰伊(Ajay)說道。“不錯。”我回道。“棒極了！;)相信我能幫到你。”

After a further snowstorm of smiley faces and professions of willingness to help, it emerged that he couldn’t. “I hope that was helpful ;). Take care!” he signed off.

他接着甩出大把的笑臉表情，併發出一連串樂意效勞的職業化語句，但事實證明他幫不了我。他發了句話：“希望這些對你有幫助;)。萬事小心！”接着就下線了。

This exchange was relatively chilly by comparison to a live chat posted on Reddit from an Xbox user with an employee called Kelly, who at one point typed: “You’re such an understanding person. I wish I can give you a cup of coffee or cold Mountain Dew for that!” No doubt Kelly thought – like Michelle – that she was just making the service more personal. In fact, she was making it borderline sinister.

比起Reddit網站上一位Xbox用戶貼出的在線聊天記錄，這次對話算是相對冷淡的。與該Xbox用戶對話的是一名叫凱莉(Kelly)的員工，她打了這樣一句話：“您真是善解人意。就衝這話我都想請您喝杯咖啡或冰鎮激浪(Mountain Dew)了。”毫無疑問，凱莉的用意和米歇爾一樣——她只是想讓服務變得更人性化。而事實上，她的做法讓她的服務都近乎邪惡了。

Twenty years ago the insincerity of “have a nice day” used to rankle. But now even “have a great day” sounds lukewarm as any day less than “awesome” is not deemed worth wishing for. Equally, “no problem” (always maddening as there nearly always was a problem) became “no problem whatsoever”, or NPW – in order to avoid the problem of having to type out three whole words.

20年前，“祝您今日愉快”這樣一句話中所包含的不真誠往往會讓人不舒服。而在今天，就算是“祝您擁有燦爛美好的一天”聽上去也平淡了些，因爲如今任何夠不上“精彩至極”的一天都不值得用來祝福。同樣，“沒問題”（這句話總是令人惱火，因爲差不多每次都會出問題）也變成了“絕對沒問題”——爲了避免要敲三個單詞的麻煩，這個詞被縮寫成了NPW（No problem whatsoever的簡寫，譯者注）。

There is a rule about corporate chumminess that companies seem not to have worked out. Unless solicited by an equally matey customer, it is a bad idea. Scripted chumminess is particularly bad, as even the most moronic client can tell the difference between real and fake. The worst sort of chumminess is when the person is either failing to solve your problem or is cold calling you. All emails from PR people hawking stories that begin “I hope this email finds you well” or “I hope you are enjoying this excellent weather we’ve been having” I instantly delete without reading on.

那些大公司似乎都沒考慮到企業秀溫情的一條準則：如果服務請求不是同樣熱情的顧客主動發出的，這麼做其實是個壞主意。而照本宣科式的秀溫情尤其糟糕，因爲即使是最遲鈍的顧客也能區分出真實和虛假的情感。有兩種情況是最糟糕的，一種是服務人員沒有解決你的問題，一種是他跟你說話語氣冷冰冰的。至於我自己，對於所有發自公關人士、所兜售的故事以“希望看到這封電子郵件時您心情不錯”或“希望您也在享受我們一直享有的絕佳天氣”這類句子開頭的電子郵件，我都會在第一時間看都不看地刪掉。

Chumminess is only acceptable when it feels natural and when it’s not too blatantly self-interested. Simon and Laurie’s good wishes were a little incontinent in their friendliness, but were so amateurish they felt quite sweet. For big, faceless corporations, getting the personal touch right is far harder.

溫情只有在感覺自然並且功利性不過於明顯的情況下才會被人接受。在西蒙和勞裏的美好祝福中，他們要表達友好卻沒有掌握好度，不過儘管很業餘，他們還是令人覺得相當溫馨。而對於規模較大卻缺乏名氣的企業來說，要恰當地與客戶進行個人化的交流要困難得多。

J Sainsbury has been trying to teach the people who man its social networks to be pally in just the right way. A few months ago a customer tweeted: “I tried to buy some battered fish from @sainsburys but it didn’t have a bar cod!” The company replied: “Were there no other packs in the plaice, or was that the sole one on the shelf? Floundering for an explanation! David.” More fish puns followed and the company was so pleased with the exchange it put out a press release.

森寶利(J Sainsbury)超市集團在爲其社交網絡培訓人員時，一直力圖教會他們如何以正確的方式表現得親密。幾個月前，一名顧客發了條tweet：“我想從@sainsburys買點炸魚，但是那上面沒有條碼！”森寶利回覆說：“‘比目魚(plaice，這裏通place，譯者注)裏’再沒別的了麼，還是架上只有一包了？遊（原文裏flounder既有努力移動之意，也有比目魚之意，譯者注）出來解釋一下！戴維(David)。”跟帖中出現了更多與魚有關的雙關語。該公司覺得這次對話十分有趣，還作爲新聞稿發佈出來。

There was another time when a woman tweeted from a Sainsbury’s car park that she was trapped with a sleeping baby and longed for coffee. The social networking team tracked her down and got someone to take her some. Another cute story. The personal touch on social networks triumphs.

還有一次，一位婦女在森寶利的停車場發tweet稱，正在睡覺的寶寶令她脫不開身，而她又很想喝杯咖啡。森寶利的社交網絡團隊查明瞭她的位置，讓人爲她帶了咖啡。這又是一個溫馨的故事。社交網絡上的個人化聯絡取得了成功。

Only there is a small catch. If we all asked for free coffee in car parks we wouldn’t get it. The primary point of a business is not to befriend people on Twitter by giving stuff away. It is to sell things that people want to buy.

不過，這故事裏有一個小問題。如果我們全都在停車場索要免費咖啡，我們就喝不到這樣的咖啡了。企業的首要目標不是通過送東西在Twitter上和人交朋友，而是出售人們想要的商品。