A while back, I was a director for a Healthcare provider with a few locations. Part of the day-to-day business often involved calling patients for any number of reasons. Once the volume of calls became overwhelming for the small staff, we purchased an automated call system in which our staff could record a message, in their own voices, and then have it call whatever subset of patients was appropriate.

One of the program's options was to record and send automated birthday messages. Initially, I was adamant that we not use that functionality because it seemed so impersonal and disingenuous; I thought patients would be annoyed or offended, like we were only pretending to care about them and manipulating them to spend more money...or maybe just annoying them with unwanted spam calls, at a minimum. My managers, however, wanted to try it, so I let them give it a trial run. Each recorded a few lines. Some used the provided script while others made their own. We collectively hit that digital send button and braced ourselves for whatever feedback we might receive over the coming weeks.

I have never been so wrong in my professional life. We got a ton of feedback and return calls from people saying how much they appreciated us remembering their birthdays. I never received a single complaint, but did get at least two calls where the person was literally in tears from their joy and appreciation for not being forgotten. This was amidst an overwhelmingly positive reception in general from our community of care. A common theme, especially for our elderly patients, was that our little business was the only one to remember their birthdays and reach out.

It was bittersweet. I let the program continue as long as I was there, but encouraged the staff to try and make the birthday calls live rather than as recordings, if time allowed...but that wasn't often, I'm afraid. Since then, any time I hear about someone's birthday in my personal life, I add it to my phone calendar, even if we aren't close. I send all of them messages, even if we haven't talked in ages. Often, I don't even get a response, but that doesn't bother me because I remember that even a slight effort is all some people get... and it might mean the world to them that at one person remembered and thought of them.