Handwritten thank you note to customers

[Fpm9]

Hey everyone,

Discussions are going well with my supplier and I should be able to launch my first product soon. They agreed to manufacture my product, we need to fix a few packaging issues.

In the meantime, I was thinking of ordering a few hundreds of cards so when I'll be shipping products I can write a few lines to thank my customers.

Since I won't fulfill hundreds of orders a day ( hopefully someday ), I'll have time to do that. This will cost me a few pennies per order, and I've read that doing so significally increases my customer retention rate.

Anyone is doing / has done this ? Or has any opinion on marketing inserts ?

Thanks!

 

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[jon.M]

Haven't done it myself, but I currently research a niche I'm getting into. And according to customer reviews, some people seem to like it. Here's a review I saved:

"[...] Service was excellent! A generous sample was included and I loved the personal touch of a hand written note of thank"

I guess it could be a nice addition, but not on its own. In the cases I've seen this work best, the companies always seemed to provide an overall flawless and friendly customer experience.

 

[minivanman]

In my cleaning business I always had my girls hand write thank you's and Christmas cards. No joke, if I would go around and check the girl's work in February my customers would remember the hand written Christmas card and mention it.... it stuck in their mind. I've gotten really cool cards (both thank you & Christmas) from other countries and I would hear about those cards for years. So be sure and get a cool card along with it being hand written. It doesn't go un-noticed.

 

[ZF Lee]

Hey everyone,

Discussions are going well with my supplier and I should be able to launch my first product soon. They agreed to manufacture my product, we need to fix a few packaging issues.

In the meantime, I was thinking of ordering a few hundreds of cards so when I'll be shipping products I can write a few lines to thank my customers.

Since I won't fulfill hundreds of orders a day ( hopefully someday ), I'll have time to do that. This will cost me a few pennies per order, and I've read that doing so significally increases my customer retention rate.

Anyone is doing / has done this ? Or has any opinion on marketing inserts ?

Thanks!

@Carol Jones

 

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[Fpm9]

Haven't done it myself, but I currently research a niche I'm getting into. And according to customer reviews, some people seem to like it. Here's a review I saved:

"[...] Service was excellent! A generous sample was included and I loved the personal touch of a hand written note of thank"

I guess it could be a nice addition, but not on its own. In the cases I've seen this work best, the companies always seemed to provide an overall flawless and friendly customer experience.

So you're saying a cool note won't make up for a shitty product ? That makes sense. Of course I'll try to provide great Customer service, which is more important than a note.

In my cleaning business I always had my girls hand write thank you's and Christmas cards. No joke, if I would go around and check the girl's work in February my customers would remember the hand written Christmas card and mention it.... it stuck in their mind. I've gotten really cool cards (both thank you & Christmas) from other countries and I would hear about those cards for years. So be sure and get a cool card along with it being hand written. It doesn't go un-noticed.

Yes, maybe I should spend some time designing a nice card and not writing on a basic piece of paper with my company logo on it.

On the other hand, my product will be priced at around $30. Won't customers see a handwritten note as a sign I'm running a very small company from my basement, and not a serious business ?

 

[JAJT]

I've received some pretty realistic looking "hand written" notes from local real estate agents. I'm 99% sure they are copies of an original but there were some great credibility indicators that would likely fool most people:

- blue ink,
- non standard paper size
- folded paper like you'd do with a note
- happy face sticker sealing it closed
- No envelope

Got in the mail and I GENUINELY thought a neighbor dropped a note in my mailbox. Only when I opened it and read it and saw the real estate card that I had that "ah ha!" moment and knew it was staged (or almost certainly staged).

If I were to include something like this I'd almost certainly look into companies that can replicate this so I don't have to ACTUALLY write dozens, hundreds or thousands of letters myself. Same effect, better consistency, and a fraction of the work.

 

[Fpm9]

I've received some pretty realistic looking "hand written" notes from local real estate agents. I'm 99% sure they are copies of an original but there were some great credibility indicators that would likely fool most people:

- blue ink,
- non standard paper size
- folded paper like you'd do with a note
- happy face sticker sealing it closed
- No envelope

Got in the mail and I GENUINELY thought a neighbor dropped a note in my mailbox. Only when I opened it and read it and saw the real estate card that I had that "ah ha!" moment and knew it was staged (or almost certainly staged).

If I were to include something like this I'd almost certainly look into companies that can replicate this so I don't have to ACTUALLY write dozens, hundreds or thousands of letters myself. Same effect, better consistency, and a fraction of the work.

Thank you for the idea and the indicators. I'd certainly try to find a company if I had thousands of orders, but now I have zero sales and no product to sell yet. I think I'll spend more time finding a company that can replicate a letter than writing it myself. Also, if I write those cards myself, I can use the customers first name.

What makes you think no enveloppe makes it more real ? I had an idea of a postcard ( with a cool picture of a sunset or something, and not only my company logo and "THANK YOU" words ) that I'd put in a non-business looking enveloppe, so it looks like this is a postcard from a friend.

 

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[minivanman]

Now I would figure a fella like MJ would know there are companies that do, indeed, have a machine that can make a note look just like human hand writing. I had looked in to using them 10-12 years ago but never did. I would say, if you are going to be doing several a day you would want to use a machine to do it unless you love to write

 

[Belphegor]

We include a handwritten note with every order we fulfill and it's shown up in several of our reviews and we've had customers email us about the nice touch.

We tested it using GotPrint, printed on a post-card size sheet, our branding and a big "Thank You" on one side, and the other side blank where we write a short note thanking the customer for their business.

We don't include the customer's name anymore since we just batch-write them every so often and toss them in the box.

It's tedious writing them out, but as it's shown up in reviews and helping complete the customer experience we're after, we're going to continue doing it.

Once we're through our current run of cards, we'll get them printed to look signed... but for now we're doing the real thing.