Why the Personal Touch Matters More Than Ever
Earlier this week, I spent over an hour on the phone with Virgin Atlantic trying to cancel a return flight I'll never take.
The context: My father-in-law is dying. We flew to London to be with him during this difficult time, with no idea when we’d return home. Weeks later, when I needed to book a flight from London back to New York, one-way tickets were over £2,200. Return flights were significantly cheaper. A Virgin representative advised me to book the return and simply not use the final portion. I was assured that, given our circumstances, this wouldn’t be an issue.
But when I called to cancel the unused leg, I was told I’d need to pay $300.
What followed was a frustrating conversation with a representative who seemed confused by everything I said. I explained our situation several times. He kept repeating, “Yes ma’am, but we need a death certificate.”
A death certificate. For someone who hasn’t died.
After forty minutes of this loop (me explaining that I was following prior guidance, that hospital documents had already been submitted, that no one had died) I was finally transferred.
The second representative was more competent, but still insisted on the cancellation fee. Only after I pushed him to review the transcript of my earlier call did he acknowledge I’d been told something different. The fee was eventually waived.
But not before I spent over an hour on the phone. Not before being asked repeatedly for proof of a death that hasn't happened. Not before being sharply reminded, during an already painful time, that we are often just entries in a database to companies that say they care.
We’ve traded human connection for corporate convenience.
In our push for efficiency and automation, we've learned to accept being treated as problems to solve instead of people to understand. We explain ourselves to systems that can't hold context, to representatives reading from scripts that leave no space for nuance.
The personal touch - someone taking time to listen, to really understand, and to respond with care - has become so rare that when it happens, it feels extraordinary.
I think about this often.
When someone books a consultation with me, they're sometimes surprised by how much space I give their story. They're used to fast answers and surface level fixes. Real attention feels unfamiliar.
But the personal touch isn’t just about service. It’s about being seen. It's about your particular experience mattering enough for someone to stop and respond thoughtfully.
What upset me most about the Virgin experience wasn’t the fee. It was the rigid, impersonal approach. It wasn’t just unhelpful. It was insensitive and insulting.
In a world built for speed and scale, I find myself longing for more humanity. I feel the deep disconnect that is evident in so many of our interactions these days. That quiet ache after a conversation where you know you weren’t really heard. Where you leave feeling more invisible than before.
Technology may have advanced, but our human needs haven’t.
I come from a time before call centers. When customer service was still customer focused. Before we bought into the idea that faster always means better, no matter what has to be compromised.
We’ve been told that streamlined systems work for everyone, but they often fail the people who need help the most. The ones in crisis. The ones whose stories don’t fit the script. The ones who simply need to be heard.
Maybe we don’t have to accept the impersonal as inevitable. Maybe we can demand better. And maybe we can offer better too.
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