I've mentioned this in another thread before, but Wufoo sent me a handwritten thank you note for being a (paid) customer one year around Christmas.
Now THAT made an impression.
It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
11–20 of 67 posts
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#12I think it's a nice trick, and I will definitely apply it myself once we're ready to roll out. I do have one comment though (similar to redguava's). Emailing the first 1000 users, fine. But doing it personally and manually, why? Aren't you going to end up using exactly the same text for all your users (either that or risk typos that make you look less professional, not more human)? Don't forget the risk of developing…
Its not an engineering problem, its a customer service, business and relationship problem. I contend that the more you humanize these types of interactions, the better your results will be, the more you will learn. Look at it this way, 30 seconds to send each email works out to a bit more than 8 hours work to get some amazing customer feedback. Some organizations will spend this much time in planning meetings just to…
But, again, what do you say in an email that is personalized? Do you switch sentences around at random, change "hi" for "hey", forget a comma, replace a dot by an exclamation mark?
Responding to "it's a waste of my time to write the same email a thousand times" with "you should reply to each email personally" is moving the goalpost. The OP is about sending a first welcome email to every user that signs up, not about replying to an email sent for customer service or technical support.
I would never reply to a client using a canned response, I hate those with a passion. But the first email being sent, the client didn't send anything, doesn't know you or your writing style, didn't offer you any chance of customizing because it's just a "welcome to our service, thanks for signing up, I'm there if you need me" email. My point is, write it as if you would send it personally, but automate the actual sending.
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#13protip: setup a separate email account to this from
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not an engineering problem, its a customer service, business and relationship problem. I contend that the more you humanize these types of interactions, the better your results will be, the more you will learn. Look at it this way, 30 seconds to send each email works out to a bit more than 8 hours work to get some amazing customer feedback. Some organizations will spend this much time in planning meetings just to…
But, again, what do you say in an email that is personalized? Do you switch sentences around at random, change "hi" for "hey", forget a comma, replace a dot by an exclamation mark? Responding to "it's a waste of my time to write the same email a thousand times" with "you should reply to each email personally" is moving the goalpost. The OP is about sending a first welcome email to every user that signs up, not about…
In theory, I think your approach is fine, but in practice, there will always be opportunity to personalize. If you are really motivated, you can google the person and see if something interesting comes up, or you might already know the person tangentially from a conference, or there was an issue with the order that your team had to fix (a great opportunity to reconnect with a potentially unhappy customer). etc. Sure, a number of them might be exactly the same, but many of them won't be if you commit to the exercise and look for opportunities to form a relationship with these clients.
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#15I've done this since day one in my startup (I'm in day 112). Not being a hacker I have to be really careful where to put my dev money, so any automation I might want to do I have to figure out ways to do it without involving the devs (that money goes to the service I'm building)
I have a combination of processes:
1. User must fill out a form with their name and email in order to get the download link. For this I use Madmimi.com.
2. I have setup a drip campaign. Basically what happens is that once my users confirm their email, Madmimi automatically sends out and email with an welcome text and the download links (the benefit here is obvious: I have the users email and I now have statistics about click rates on the link)
3. This drip campaign has two additional emails. One in 15 days and another in 30 days (after the signup).
The 15 days after sign up email, basically ask how's everything is doing and contains a link to a quick survey about the whole experience so far (I use Wufoo). Is a guided survey with close question.
The 30 days after sign up email is an open question about how they feel with the app. What does it mean to them, etc.
Also, my app sends me a log every-time the user uses it for the first time (here is where I haven't been able to do a full integration)
What I do is: I receive this log that contain the users email and some data about the usage. At that moment I fire up my email client and write a welcome email. This is a personal email from me to my user. I thank them, give them all my contact info and basically say: I'm here for you 24/7 (to this day no user has ever waited more than two hours to hear from me when they write) and I keep that promise.
Most of the time, the emails I get are basically about the same and my answers are very much alike.
To manage this and to be able to give it a personal touch, I installed TextExpander on my Mac and have setup several templates that contain most of my answers but not the full answer. This forces me to read what I'm writing and actually personalize it a bit.
This method, while not perfect has brought incredible benefits for my startup:
One client was having some issues with the app and my response was fo fast and so helpful that he could not believe it. Turned out the guy was a radio dj and had a show about entrepreneurship. We did a two hour radio interview.
Another client is actively pushing my app to his clients because of the customer support I gave him the first days he used the app. He was having some issues (all created by him) and I dedicated 6 hours to help this client. He is now one of my most active evangelist.
It pays, big time, to do customer support with passion. Let your users feel it and they will reward you for it.
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#16[deleted]
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#17As long as you have their first name, I don't see why this can't be automated. It doesn't seem time well spent and there is more chance for error doing it manually. I agree with getting in touch, I just don't agree with spending your time each day doing it.
You shouldn't fully automate it. I have a semi automatic process where I click a mail_to link and get a pre-filled email ready to send with the customer's name in it.
Occasionally, there is reason to do a little research into the customer's operations (e.g. visiting their website) from which I can add a personal twist.
If you do it that way, it's not a huge time suck.
Here's what wrecks the experience:
1) The email comes from info@example.com instead of your personal company email account.
2) The email does not contain your normal signature, complete with email and phone number.
3) The email contains too much custom info (nothing more than the customer's name). No real person would take the time to cut and paste a customer's custom URL, for example.
4) HTML emails, unless they are very plainly styled. It needs to look like a regular friendly email.
5) Any sort of marketing speak. Has to be in your actual voice, as if you were talking with a friend. It's not a sales pitch, but an opportunity to connect.
6) Getting the name wrong! Just because there is a name field doesn't mean your customers put their name in it. This is the main automation killer. Better to have no name at all than the wrong name or "Dear Admin User"
7) The email is too long or contains anything that a reasonable person would assume was cut and pasted in.
8) Not asking any questions - if you don't ask questions, you're less likely to get an answer.
I'm sure there is more, but this recipe works reasonably well for me.
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't work. Users can spot an auto-generated email a mile away. I answer a lot of mail and I make sure that I always refer to something in the original email that is unique to the writer. That goes a long way to getting out of the 'form letter' rut and the response is much better than with emails that contain no 'personal note'.
Reading the email in the linked post, I don't see any "personal note" in there. Other than the first name which, as redguava points out, is easily obtainable. It looks personalized, sure. But there's nothing telling me it isn't sent by a cron job.
Indeed, it just looks like an automated welcome message.
In the early days of the internet, I may have fallen for something like that... only to realise my reply went to a ticket support system or a fake 'from' address. Nowadays, I'm cynical about welcome messages and just delete them.
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#19At first glance, I balked at the title, saying to myself, "Who has the time to personally email 1000 people while doing everything else a founder is responsible for. "
However, after reading the article, I completely agree with this approach. The personal touch, ID of earlyvangelists, and starting a constructive conversation. Great article.
Re: It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users
#20As long as you have their first name, I don't see why this can't be automated. It doesn't seem time well spent and there is more chance for error doing it manually. I agree with getting in touch, I just don't agree with spending your time each day doing it.
It's okay, you'll come around. Really, it's not something worth automating and you'll realize that when you accidentally send your mom / investor / mentor / family friend a canned response.