The Problem With Automated Methods of Appreciation
There has been a growing trend in the blogosphere of automated appreciation. While appreciation is indeed a good thing, I believe that automated appreciation tears at the fabric of what appreciation stands for. Appreciation is personal and should not be done in bulk.
Throughout this post, I will lay out three problems of automating appreciation. One example will be political, one example will have to deal with work, and the last one with the blogosphere.
Thanks for Dying For Our Country
One of the many scandals of the Iraq war was when then United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted to not personally signing over a thousand letters sent to grieving families who lost their loved ones in the war. He was labeled as insensitive and uncaring. Politics aside, young Soldiers paid the ultimate price, but the one who sent them to war couldn’t find the time to put down his real signature.
In the case of Mr. Rumsfeld, it wasn’t his signature that mattered to the families and politicians. It was the fact that he didn’t personally look over and sign any of the documents sent to grieving families. The condolence letters were meant to assuage grief and show appreciation from a country, but the method of appreciation was automated. After it was found out that his signature was automated, a backlash ensued. In the aftermath, Rumsfeld decided to personally sign all letters.
Thanks For Volunteering
Day after day I see many people working very hard at their jobs. At my place of business, we have some of the brightest minds and they work silently at their cubicles completing deadlines for very important projects. One time while working on a project I was called away for a few hours to man a booth to represent our company. I sat at this booth for about two hours not really doing anything except greeting potential customers and giving away free stuff. For my two hours of “hard work” I received a certificate from the man upstairs. My other co-worker also received a certificate and after holding the certificates up to the light, I discovered that the signatures were exactly the same.
Did I feel appreciated for my efforts because I got a certificate that the man upstairs didn’t even sign personally? Not really. I suppose I’m glad someone took the time to use a color printer, but what about my other duties? Is my paycheck appreciation enough? Yes, but sometimes it’s nice to be noticed for the work you do on a day-to-day basis. In that case, a certificate for a few hours of insignificant work without a real signature was a slap in the face.
Automated Thank You’s
Chris Garrett wrote a post about an automated way to thank first-time commenters. The technique uses a WordPress plugin called Comment Relish, which detects a first-time commenter and sends an automated “thank you”.
While these e-mails are nice to get, they give the illusion of availability. What if a reader were to reply to such an e-mail? Or, what if a reader wasn’t a first-time commenter but just using a different e-mail address. Wouldn’t the reader be able to put two and two together that the e-mail is automated?
So what’s wrong with an automated e-mail? It’s impersonal. It’s formulaic. It’s lazy.
If you are going to use automated e-mails to first-time commenters, I suggest using Alister Cameron’s approach by having these e-mails sent to you and then personalize and send them them out.
Alister lays out his reason for personalizing the e-mail:
I don’t want a comment sent the moment they submit the comment. That’s not natural. By sending me an email, a more organic and natural exchange occurs. It may be hours before I see that email to adjust it and pass it on, but that’s more real to me.
Conclusion
Automation allows important and busy people to appreciate in bulk. However, is automated appreciation really appreciation? Please weigh in.
Andrew says...
Personally I am not keen on getting e-mails as a matter of course. Taking a conversation ‘off-blog’ is fine if you want to continue part of it privately but an ‘on-blog’ response is better otherwise.
Ronald Huereca says...
Thanks Andrew for your comment. (This comment was automatically generated by the Ronalfy Auto-Commenter v3.1.0.4).
Okay, I’m just kidding about the auto-commenter (good idea, no?). I totally agree about ‘off-blog’ conversations. I typically e-mail commenters on support issues or other issues if I don’t want the conversation public. Otherwise, as you have stated, a on-blog response is perfectly acceptable and will also show others publicly that you do indeed take the time to respond to others.
Ronald Huereca says...
Andrew,
Perhaps a little off-topic, but you mentioned receiving e-mails from a comment. As a blogger, I have access to all of the e-mail addresses of anybody who ever commented here. Sometimes I use that information to e-mail that commenter directly. Do you see anything wrong with that? Or, is this only problematic perhaps when the correspondence is automated?
Rory says...
We often hear that the focus has to be about the reader not about the author. It strikes me that automated e-mail are for the author’s convenience, and not about the reader’s experience.
Though well-intentioned, the automated e-mail intends to draw the reader back because they are personally cared about. It’s more likely that an authentic personal e-mail would reach further than an automated response - although that might be difficult when a blog gets high traffic.
Andrew says...
Ronald, I see absolutely nothing wrong with continuing a conversation by e-mail if it would be more appropriate to do that, or with e-mailing about something different, but these two things pre-suppose either an existing relationship (perhaps by virtue of having already had ‘on-blog’ conversations).
An example, I have come to this post and commented (It wasn’t the first time but in theory it could’ve been). You have followed up with a further question, i.e. what do you think about it in this light?
Now this is clearly an appropriate ‘on-blog’ discussion and doesn’t need an e-mail. As Rory says, I don’t see what purpose an e-mail would serve for me, the reader. Especially when there are good things like comment subscription.
In other cases you might be writing about a product you have an issue with that someone has produced. You want my opinion on it, or possibly just want to converse on it more specifically, but don’t want to publish the product name on the blog. Well then e-mail away. I certainly see no issue with that.
Ultimately I agree with Rory, I just go one e-mail further. If a first contact e-mail is sent without a specific reason why e-mail contact is needed then I see little benefit. I don’t see the need to say thanks for commenting when that could be said ‘on-blog’ as part of a response.
Chris Garrett says...
I too prefer a hand written email rather than an automated one and I strive to reply to every comment on my blog personally. I see it as a confirmation their comment has worked and been accepted, like the customer service emails you get from Amazon.com. Relish only emails brand new commenters. Ideally I would want a method to identify those people so I could email them personally. On my blog there are so many comments it would be unworkable to both reply in the comments and personally email every commenter, and that would also be a real turn off as some people return every day to comment.
Simonne says...
I’d rather answer the comments directly on my blog. It works because I have only a few commenters. I know when somebody comments for the first time, so I can say welcome. As a reader and a commenter, I’m not very fond of e-mails from blogs where I comment. Not to mention that some bloggers push this “kindness” to the extreme, offering to help me make money, be happy… and everything is “to your success”… a few times a week.
Ronald Huereca says...
Rory,
If I do e-mail a commenter, it’s definitely not an automated response. Hopefully I never get “famous” enough to have to automate my email messages.
Andrew,
I agree completely. The only time I have ever e-mailed commenters is when I felt that private correspondence would serve the reader better than public correspondence. Sometimes I would do both since more than often the e-mail I send ends up in the spam box.
Chris,
E-mailing and commenting would definitely be difficult, even on a lightly commented blog. I prefer Alister Cameron’s approach mentioned in the post above where he adds a little personalization to the e-mails he sends to first time commenters.
Simonne,
More often than not, this is the approach I take. For support questions, however, most of that is done behind the scenes.
Bes says...
I personally prefer personal replies and e-mails to everyone. I am not sure why the readers, or others, who are one of the main reasons one earns money, tend to be given automated batch processing priorities so that appreciating them becomes automated.
Also, I write and respond to over 200 e-mails daily [average from the last 7 days], and it takes me a maximum of 1-1.5 hours. Therefore, it boils down to whether or not a person wishes to spend more time promoting their own blog or money or both or spending time communicating with others sincerely.
One important thing: acknowledging comments and simply saying thank you or responding to comments just to fulfill an obligation to respond to all comments does not work. Very few, probably less than a 100 blogs that I have seen so far, really communicate with all of their readers. The bigger people grow, the more they focus on other things.
Also, Chris, I return comments on around 5 different blogs, totaling more than 300-400 daily, and they also take around 1-2 hours. I guess it boils down to where one would like to put their priority in. For me, online and on any site, one of the top two priorities that I do not want affected is the content and my communication with readers.
I am against automated methods and messages, including the one that Chris talked about, unless the automated method saves me time by allowing me to write personal, unique messages faster. Otherwise, such automated methods are simply assembly lines classifying all customers and readers into one, the same way many offline businesses do. I am glad slowly more and more people are starting to realize such trends online, specially with the help of RA Project. Automated methods are how a further classification of blogs will come down to: people who really want to appreciate and actually do appreciate each and every reader, and people who appreciate since showing appreciation will result in more attention and thus automated methods can help save time in the appreciation arena while one focuses on other things that are considered, by that person or entity, to be more important than appreciation and readers.
Ronald Huereca says...
I just came across an article regarding someone suing major companies over automated e-mails. It’s a frivolous lawsuit, but just one of the dangers I suppose of automation.