On Gratitude

Source: Flickr

When I was working as a salesperson at Orange, I remember a document we received about customer satisfaction that surprised me. It said that a satisfied customer (rating the service 8 to 10 out of 10) would talk about it to 1-2 persons, whereas a displeased customer (rating 0 to 4 out of 10) would complain about it to 10-15 persons in average.

What does it mean? Are we more inclined to complain about what's wrong than express our gratitude about something that went well? Talking about unpleasant experiences is totally understandable, but how come we don't talk as much about the good ones? Maybe because we tend to think that a good experience - like a nice salesperson - is normal, so we don't discuss it. Which made me think about gratitude.

When we think something is normal, we don't talk about it, and we are not grateful for it. There are a lot of great things in our lives, that we forget to be grateful about because "it's normal". What would happen if we started expressing gratitude for the good things we have, the nice things people do for us?

I think smiling and saying thank you triggers a positive response from people. Talking about this good experience with friends may lead them to share their good experiences too, giving a more positive turn to the conversation. In other words, expressing a little more gratitude in our daily life could make it nicer. Wouldn't it?

In other words, doesn't gratitude create happiness? I think it does. What do you think?