Customer Service. Really!
My daughter accidentally left hiking boots and a sleeping bag in the overhead bin on a flight to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) over the weekend. She was running to catch a flight and called, panting, looking for help.
I called the various Lost & Found numbers at the airport, expecting the usual maze of automated prompts and bogus promises that “your call is very important to us.” To my great surprise, shockingly, after dialing a few numbers, an actual human picked up.
Within minutes, Evelyn, a Customer Service Solutions Supervisor, had tracked down the boots and sleeping bag, and had both items placed in the gate's Lost & Found cabinet. I almost fell off my chair!
It was, without question, the speediest, most professional, most cordial, and most effective customer service I have E V E R received.
Stunned and deeply appreciative, I contacted Evelyn’s manager and told her that Evelyn had been incredible and, in my humble opinion, deserved a bonus, a raise, or a promotion.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what impressed me wasn't simply that she solved the problem. It was that she very clearly CARED about solving it.
Evelyn took a problem that wasn't personal to her (her job, sure), figured out who could help, took quick action, followed through, and made sure the things my daughter had accidentally left behind were safe.
As we race to replace people with AI, I’ve moved from not only wondering if it will be more artificial or intelligent, to now wondering about whether it can ever care. Form the words to demonstrate caring, sure. But actually caring seems improbable.
AI is great for searching existing data and materials at warp speed. But can it ever recognize in a concerned parent’s voice that something that may seem small has great emotional importance for a young adult traveling on her own? I doubt it.
Boots and a sleeping bag are of course only things that could be replaced. But there is memory and meaning embedded in some things. And, for a moment, Evelyn reminded me that people helping other people is about more than completing a task. She restored a little of my faith in humans to do incredibly good things for one another.