Why do we deliberately choose to stay human when the world keeps nudging us the other way?
Somewhere along the line, good customer service stopped being the baseline and started becoming a surprise.
Emails come from “no-reply” addresses.
Questions turn into ticket numbers.
And when something doesn’t quite go to plan, you’re funnelled through layers of process designed to protect systems, not people.
It’s efficient. It scales.
But it often feels strangely empty.
Recently, a customer sent us a note that made us stop. Not because something went perfectly, but because it didn’t.
One line stuck with us:
“It’s such a breath of fresh air to actually deal with a pleasant, responsive, real-life human being on the other side of an email.”
It reminded us how rare this has become.
At Art of Ping Pong, we still answer emails ourselves.
Not because it’s clever, or nostalgic, or particularly efficient. But because it keeps us close to the people who choose to support what we make.
It means when something arrives with a mark. Or a second order overlaps. Or a question doesn’t fit neatly into a dropdown menu. A real person reads it. Thinks about it. Replies.
There’s no script. No “customer service department”. Just humans doing their best to sort things out properly.
That choice comes with a cost.
It’s slower.
It’s messier.
It takes emotional energy, especially when the inbox is full and the workshop is busy.
It doesn’t scale cleanly, and it probably never will.
But that friction matters. It’s where trust is built.
We don’t want to build a brand that becomes impressive at the expense of being personal. Or one that grows so polished it forgets who it’s actually for.
Staying human isn’t something you set once and forget. It’s a decision you have to keep making, especially as the world nudges you towards automation, distance, and speed.
If we ever stop replying like humans, something will have gone wrong.
So thank you to everyone who supports small, independent businesses. To those who are patient, kind, and understanding when things aren’t perfect.
It’s that shared understanding that makes this way of working possible.
And it’s the reason we’ll keep choosing the human option, even when it’s the harder one.
