Are you losing personalization in all the automation?

A visitor comes to your website and places an order. Today's tools are smart enough to generate an automated order confirmation, send the order to the fulfillment house, and then send a second email to the customer when the order has shipped. Everything is completely automated with no human intervention.

This is the way things should run. Today we try to save money and operate efficiently. But are we losing the personal touch and depersonalizing the entire experience?  How can you make the ordering experience from the web more personal?

I don't really have the answers, but here are two quick thoughts.

If you have a limited number of orders it's fairly easy to follow up the order with a personal email or to inject a personal hand written 'thank you' note into each box.

In a club situation, Mission Hill's wine club sent a vine branch with all of their club shipments in an effort to help you connect a little more with the winery.

It's Canadian Thanksgiving today, and while I'm watching this turkey cook, I'm trying to figure out better ways to personalize this depersonalized experience. Any ideas?