fake smiles & customer service — just for the sake of it

Let me illustrate what I mean by 2 examples:

#1: Some time back I had posted about alleged malpractices of Skoda India and so did many other bloggers around India. This incident had nothing to do with me personally and was just my views on what I had heard on an automobile forum. I do not (and don’t intend to) own a Skoda car and yet someone from Skoda India read my blog and here is the comment they posted on my blog and the emails they sent to me had the following (name/email/phone number masked to prevent misuse):

“Please get in touch with Mr. XXXXX from the Skoda after sales department on xxxxx@skoda-auto.co.in or 0240 xxxxxx to resolve your concerns”

Now this action on behalf of Skoda India an act of reaching out just for the sake of reaching out. It has no value at all and just be reading it shows the lack of sincerity that is obvious in the interaction. Here I saw presenting my views and I don’t even own a Skoda and how would reaching out to  “Skoda after sales department” help me ??

#2: Sometime back I along with few friends went to a reputed/upscale restaurant for dinner and since we had landed up there without reservation we had to wait for a table. After some time of waiting we were given a table and a smartly dressed, smiling, english speaking waiter came to the table and asked us if we would like regular water or mineral bottled water. We mentioned our choice and he went away and brought water and even poured for us.
As we settled down, the manager came to our table and mentioned that we were given a table that was actually meant for some one else  (a family that had been waiting for some time now) and would it be possible for us to wait for another table and have that family take this table. He made a sincere request and we all agreed and we told the waiter that we will wait  for a table. After some 10 minutes or so we got a table and we settled down there.

Now the same smartly dressed, smiling, english speaking waiter comes to our table  and asks us this question: “would you like regular water or mineral bottled water sir”. we were like zapped..!!! That person, just 10 minutes ago had a conversation with us and had taken our preference and even poured water for us and how come he doesn’t even remember what kind of water do we want???
He was just smiling and that smile just said one thing… “fake smiles & customer service — just for the sake of it”…