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Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

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Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does “half-written” mean, in this context?

I assume that meant hand written. “Dearest Kon-Peki, thank you for purchasing the hydraulic wall crusher 9000. I think you will find this one will last slightly longer than the 8000, but as always, I am ready to sell you the newest model of this one were to suffer the ignominy so many do.” (It’s probably jewelry but it often amuses me that small businesses will spend millions on equipment with a phone call and some g…

Yes. Foiled by autocorrect.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred a video FaceTime call from the business owner or one of the partners anyway.

Let's see, we already have deep faked audio that can be trained to sound like anyone, deep faked video, and chat bots that can be trained to talk/write like anyone, so scaling this to millions of customers is not far off

Once that happens, I will prefer a home visit and maybe a non soup meal.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#63
post #58

Fucking marketers just want to destroy all sincerity in the world.

I had the same response. It should really read - sincere sales increase sales - thats the model. Whatever is considered to be the next sincere thing will be emulated by marketing and ruined.

That plus "Receiving gratitude has an outsized impact on other's mental health."

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#64

Fucking marketers just want to destroy all sincerity in the world.

Another interpretation would be that they are just uncovering the fact that behind many nice and kind behaviours lie some very selfish interests. In every human interaction you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests. It's just the way it is. Some people can see it, others not or just don't want to.

True enough. Even though i can see it doesn't mean it isnt disappointing.

Tangentially related, do you think some people can see/feel power and are drawn in while other people are relatively immune to it? There are some people in the world that i see have a very good ability to read power etc while others are hopeless (for better or worse). Seems similar to your comment thats why i ask

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#65

There was a brilliant Twitter thread last year showing a project to "hand write" with cnc robots thousands of personalised letters for a mailout. They initially started off with off the shelf hand writing robots, but ended up building their own massive ones to increase speed and efficiency. https://mobile.twitter.com/aarondfrancis/status/143888821947...

“How do we scale that feeling that someone got a personal handwritten note” is really dystopian.

Last year I built an entire service [1] around the idea that scaling handwritten cards was a good business…

Before ultimately concluding that you’re right, it’s pretty dystopian.

So I called it quits.

[1] fountaincards.com

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#66
I will counter that i get those hand written notes to buy my house (clearly a marketing effort) which turns me off so fast. Does anyone reach out to those fake hand written offers? Only real hand written note i got in the mail was from jehovas witness outreach campaign on lined paper that couldn't have been faked. To be fair, it caught my attention but was swiftly dismissed.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#69

Fucking marketers just want to destroy all sincerity in the world.

It is a matter of semiotics. At one point you need to scale, and you realise you can just manipulate symbols easier. They might at one point have come from sincerity, but industrial scale trumples all.

Only when empowered by the minds of the unimaginative

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#70

Fucking marketers just want to destroy all sincerity in the world.

Well, yes, but... take away from this something less grim. It's something a friend who was in marketing used to say to me all of the time: "good customer service is the best marketing, and it's often very nearly free."

Chick-fil-a figured this out years ago. Their employees are required to be nice and kind, and they can get fired for having a crappy attitude. This sounds awful, Stepford-wifeish, but in reality it improves the working environment for the employees and for the customers, and it costs practically nothing. The stores aren't wildly successful simply because their (let's be honest) sorta bland chicken sandwiches are indescribably delicious. The last interaction you have with the store is a pleasant one, and that's why you're happy to go back.

(Raising Cane's does this as well, and their chicken is better.)

Sending out thank-you notes is relatively cheap, and it has an impact.

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