This summer I once again drove six hours one-way for a physical with my doctor.

For years, four of his six children were in my homeschooling seminars, taking courses like composition, Latin, literature, and history, all the way to the AP level. He was my youngest son’s basketball coach and a major mentor in his life. My doctor, his wife, and I remain friends and stay in touch.

But the main reason this man is worth the trip is because of his care. In addition to the labs and questions, it’s a real, hands-on physical. He looks into my throat and ears, bends my knees, scratches the soles of both feet, presses on my abdomen, which always brings some laughter from me, and explores the body’s bottomlands.

I once went for an examination to another physician in the town where I now live. The contrast was stark. With the exception of looking into my throat, this doctor sat about four feet away and asked me questions. I got the feeling he didn’t like touching people.

On my recent doctor’s visit, I asked the attending nurse if most physicians were as physical these days with exams. “No,” she said, noting her work in two other practices and saying that doctors these days just lack the “personal touch.”

Her comment set some thoughts in motion.

Most adults have phoned some government agency for assistance. Veterans of such calls dread them, knowing they’ll be on hold indefinitely and likely transferred to a separate line where, as I was once told, “the right person can help you.” No help came, and after another long wait I hung up and resorted to a letter.

Then there are the private corporations which, presumably to save a buck, hire phone reps who can barely speak English. I intend no offense to these responders, but to the companies which show quiet contempt for customers by hiring them.

Another case: My friend John is an avid fan of a women’s college basketball team. He was taken aback when the school began refusing cash for the small admission fee to their basketball games. Again, a lack of customer consideration.

All too often we see the personal touch kicked to the curb in favor of efficiency and cost-cutting. Large companies and government agencies do this all the time, directing traffic – an impersonal description for customers – to create an account and log in rather than speaking with a homo sapiens with a heartbeat.

Some companies deliberately practice this “Annoyance Economy,” writer Peter Gratton notes, in hopes that customers will give up insurance claims or reports of damaged goods:

You call your insurance company about a nixed claim, get routed through a phone tree, wait 40 minutes, explain your problem to a chatbot that can’t help, then start over with a human agent who asks for the same information. By the time you hang up, you’ve burned an hour on what should’ve been a two-minute fix—and you might have to call again.

These excursions into futility cost Americans about $165 billion a year.

Gratton bases his figures on a study by Neale Mahoney and Chad Maisel, which appears on the Leftist/Progressive site Groundwork Collaborative. They place all the blame for the Annoyance Economy on corporations and recommend government intervention and greater regulation. The trouble with that solution is that the government not only grows its power, but becomes an even more tangled mess than it already is.

Nor is the size of an organization always a factor when it comes to the lack of personal touch. Most of us have experienced grocery stores and restaurants where the service ranked just a cut above that of the DMV. No hello, smile, or eye contact, just employees who make even a robophobic Luddite like me long for a cashier or server made of plastic and wires.

So, how do we as consumers get past these pitfalls and unpleasantries?

Shop local. When you buy car or home insurance, visit a flesh-and-blood broker rather than signing up online. By discussing terms and options in person, you have a human contact when some mess occurs. Likewise for your phone and WIFI service.

When you’re dissatisfied with service in a store or restaurant, write to the owner. An email is preferrable to a phone call, an old-fashioned letter to an email. Be polite and diplomatic, suggesting that employees need some training in customer relations. Any competent manager or owner will likely be happy to consider your suggestions.

You can try the same with corporations or government agencies. Success here is far less likely, however, and you’ll expend even more of your time writing your letter of polite complaint. But at least you made the attempt.

Finally, if you must deal with your long-distance health insurance company or a government agency that puts you on “hold” forever, lay your plans and make that purgatory a pleasure rather than a pain. Put your phone on speaker and read a book. Do some long overdue paperwork. Write out ideas for Christmas or for next summer’s garden. Consider that hour spent waiting for an answer a mini-vacation from the duties of life.

Put yourself in control, be hands-on, and add your own personal touch to that time spent in limbo.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.

Image credit: (Alex Proimos, CC BY 2.0)