Handwritten thank you notes increase sales
tips.ariyh.com
tips.ariyh.com
https://mobile.twitter.com/aarondfrancis/status/143888821947...
It really makes a difference to have hand written with a pen as long as you have a font with multiple letter variants/subtly differences between the same letter used repeatedly.
The hardest part was probably the handwriting "generation." I put "generation" in quotes because it was mostly selecting one of the characters from the library of characters that we captured and putting it together with other characters.
The hardware had a lot of hard spots, but I think they were mostly hard because that was my first real foray into hardware.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28574908
and here:
The "mobile.twitter.com" link doesn't work (for me, on desktop).
They specifically show that their videos will use text to speech to personalize the “Hi $firstname” greeting at the top of the video.
Dystopian, like many people here are saying.
In a single naive interaction, sure, it may bring joy. But repeated at scale throughout society, it creates distrust by being insincere and devalues sincere expressions of kindness, harming everyone.
I’m sure a company could develop an AI advanced enough to imitate a cute employee who is really into you when you have an issue - and use that to encourage you to spend way more because “they love you”.
Hell, I bet you could offer “CEO on HackerNews” as a marketing service - keep an eye on posts involving your company and impersonate the CEO as necessary- and of course be able to actually call him in if needed. Probably already being done …
Heck, if you had multiple clients you could even "reinforce" each other. It's so good ... I'm kind of scared it's already being done.
Before ultimately concluding that you’re right, it’s pretty dystopian.
So I called it quits.
[1] fountaincards.com
Automated handwritten notes companies seem like they render text using a handwritten font and then potentially pass it off (via API) to a “print anything and ship it” company — is that an accurate statement?
Is there a clear advantage to building and maintaining the hardware / plotting pen portion? i.e. isn’t that something you could do by randomizing font parameters?
Also, it does seem like a pretty crowded space - was that ever a problem? Googling “handwritten notes automation” brings up a lot of companies/ads.
Thanks. Really curious about this!
I edited my comment so you may not have seen my additional question: why build out hardware vs. outsource the printing / mailing?
i.e. with enough randomness in the font/text/letter generation, was it still obvious to tell what was “handwritten” by a plotter vs printed?
And re: margins, you could have raised prices but that would have made you not competitive?
People are rightfully squeamish about sending out cards which “look” handwritten but aren’t. Imagine a customer realizes that you are faking it…the consequences to reputation could be substantial.
That said, I personally find printed cards using handwritten-style font to be insulting, so that was a no-go for us.
We considered using a third party fulfillment service and essentially charging a fee on top of that, but the returns would be microscopic for the effort.
edit: i can't speak to the technology the company uses now, i believe they switched away from our tech to something more scalable so it's probably not as good now.
we wanted the handwriting to feel as real as possible. to that end, my cofounder wrote an algo that varied each character slightly, the robots held real pens, etc. We couldn't find anyone to outsource the fulfillment to that matched this level of authenticity. Some competitors used lob.com and simply print an image of handwriting which actually can work pretty well, but is definitely recognizable if you look closely.
> re: margins, you could have raised prices but that would have made you not competitive?
This was a big point of contention between me and my cofounder. We raise them towards the end some but not enough. After selling, the company that bought us raised them substantially and are doing very well from what I understand. We should have done this early on, but focused too much on winning the deal which is what burnt us out in the end (too much business too quick, lots of sleepless nights).
And what about volumes, is each letter has different text? Should have slightly different writing?
Or are there some volumes in the system?
Not sure I understand the second question.
Edit: Do you sometimes print the same letter(or a templatized letter) 100/1000 times ?
This would have been a good optimization but we did not. Every letter generated was unique even if it was a templatized piece.
The technical parts are fun…the core thing for us was that it was actually written by a real pen. The difference between a print and real writing is obvious to most people, so we wanted it to be believable.
Our system used a set of handwritten fonts, along with a bunch of “fuzzing” of line height, line direction, and character swap outs. This created an SVG path that a robot used to trace with a pen.
The hardware and margins were what killed us. As wallawe noted, there’s still a lot of manual labor that goes into a system like this, even if the writing is automated. Envelope stuffing and card-envelope matching are big problems.
Its not a super competitive market yet, but the margins on what could be charged per card were pretty low, especially factoring in paper costs and labor costs.
What betrays handwritten fonts is nobody writes "a" the same way every time. I get that you're addressing this with fuzzing, but that's not enough. The pressure put on a pen also varies, people make mistakes and cross them out, there are ink blotches, etc.
I think you would be surprised at how realistic it can be.
I've never seen a machine handwrite that way.
I'm sure they'll get better, but there's a long way to go.
Bottom line it's like anything else -- if I don't know the person who sent it to me, I don't trust it. Automated handwriting is just more big-tech destruction of yet another facet of human to human communications.
Sounds like y’all made it further than we did, so congratulations. :)
Totally agree on margins. I vowed to skip physical products on my next effort (moneyhabitshq.com).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen
Faked signature by machine had been popular for 80 years.
I guess I could've just made another static site generator though ;)
(I don't recommend Soylent, I just use it sometimes when I'm feeling mildly self-destructive and not feeling like eating healthy food, so it's my occasional "harm reduction" alternative to getting fast-food or trash processed food)
That thread was previously posted to HN (linked below in some replies) and the responses were... mixed, to say the least!
I’ve always thought wedding invitations would be better. Rather than faking handwriting the pen is used much in the way an emboss or deboss is - to raise the quality and prestige of the document. Fountain pens allow for intricate ink sheen and color combinations. Customers are also not price sensitive.
Sophisticated cants will emerge that are structurally challenging for computers to emulate.
And because there's a lot of work going into preventing AI from computing anything racist, sexist, or offensive to HR, the new ways of communicating will likely gravitate towards those spaces -- but ironically.
Reflecting on it, people already use what would otherwise be unacceptable slurs with their closest friends (at least IME in the UK). Using this as a human-computer differentiator is intriguing. Kinda like if non-humans were really incapable of purposeful harm to humans you could get someone to pinch you to show they're not a bot... CAPTCHA of the future!
I suspect this happens everywhere. For a hilarious send up of this, see "Gran Torino".
It feels human. I like it.
So of course there's now some kind of marketing scheme trying to deprive it of its soul and see if it can be automated and optimized for.
At 1st Phorm everyone* writes notes that go with orders. Many people start as note writers and then move to other departments as they work alongside people and form relationships. Those people see the hard work that goes on and really get to the mission and purpose each and every day.
Sure, you can’t charge for the note. But hiring and building up a company who cares for your customers in small ways means hiring for other positions is easy: you’ve got the people right here.
Edit: everyone* who can. Obviously remote folks can’t do this…
Being kind is not always necessary, but being respectful goes a long way.
People (especially the type who participate in this forum) frequently equate kindness with weakness. I really get sick of that attitude. It's not an "either/or" thing. It's entirely possible to be kind, and also to have strong boundaries, and real mettle.
Respect is something that is usually (not always) appreciated; even by our enemies.
Cops are often quite respectful to you, as they slap on the bracelets.
> but my one gripe with it is that it doesn’t make me any money.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. These are exactly the types of things that are almost impossible to measure, except in a rather vague way (i.e. "Six months after we started our personalized letter campaign, our sales increased by 30%").
So I'll pick the kind ones, regardless.
What was the name of the pertinent internet rule? Poe's Law?
Both of those people are almost certainly assholes.
It's not psychologically healthy to change my behavior as a result, or to dwell on the above, but the fact that my psychologically healthy behaviors are trivially exploited for someone else's monetary gain seems like a major flaw in the system.
To be fair, I guess it is legit, as each person is writing notes, instead of going to door to door.
Was this last summer for you? Am curious, where is your approx location?
It also inspires sharing on Twitter, which helps drive the recommendation flywheel:
https://twitter.com/tdnvl/status/722882182759452675
The trouble is that it isn't easily scalable in-house at high volume. It was great until we realized that we were managing a large scale mailroom. But by then the flywheel was spinning ...
I was wondering if it would work for saas businesses, as the article talks mostly about e-commerce and hospitality.
This year, they sent me a $50 off coupon in the mail, along with a card and a hand-written and personalized note referencing the specific piece of art I had had them frame.
Instant customer for life.
Then they signed me up for a newsletter, blocked their domain and stopped using them ever-since.
To me, it falls in the category of "do things that don't scale" as you try to grow your business. An over-emphasis on customer service is rarely a bad idea.
I automate customer service emails, starting with the stats to see what the problems are. If all the time is taken up on mysteriously cancelled orders that are not communicated, I slice that off from 'manual intervention' to a well written, considerate and concise email that pulls through pertinent customer order details.
It will take me hours to develop, test and deploy that template, however, once done, it will be well received by the customer. There is a 'from the customer service team' rather than a fake name. The customer service team doesn't even have to press a button for this one to go out, it will be automated.
In time I will go for the other time taking parts of customer service, the goal really being to eliminate as much as possible. What remains can then be given the personal touch, with hand written notes and calls, if need be.
Once this is achieved, customer service can be pro-active rather than reactive.
Getting to this stage takes work. Initially it can be one calamity after another with a random roster of temporary staff of a low literacy level, possibly outsourced having to write what are essentially hand written notes. None of those notes are any good. It is at the txt spk level of communication.
Tech people always ridicule written communication, but then idolize Japanese culture, where written communication is so massively important. Funny how that mental disconnect works.
* By "high end" I mean the sort of place where customers routinely spend $90,000 in a single purchase, and several million per year at a single store.
“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 grunting but other purchases for half the money require so much hand holding.)
I wasn't sure if there was a term of art that I was missing :)
Think of it like dual monitors, do tech companies often balk at getting someone a second monitor or is it a no brainer?
Part of it is also signaling that you are NOT too busy to write the letter - which means you are not overloaded and will be available when needed.
So, not actually handwritten. Even it were actually handwritten, as a customer I’d still assume it to be a mass copy.
There is a real risk of selection bias here in that you only send handwritten thank you notes to your biggest, most loyal or most important clients. There is a line in this about it's only effective with clients who have some brand loyalty. So did the experiment account for this?
I'm reminded of of the "we value your opinion" or (worse) "you've been selected" for a survey. Surveys are zero cost of the Internet so I haven't been carefully chosen. That survey has simply been sent to everyone. It feels inauthentic.
If I buy a lime juicer and get a hand written thank you note it would similarly feel inauthentic.
High value clients tend to be high touch. It's why big ad spenders have account managers. High touch can take many forms. I'd be wary of simply trusting handwritten thank you notes in a vaccum.
(Handwritten, not a print)
God, it's stuck in my head again.
Good idea, until everyone starts using it and starts recognising the writing by the robot, then it becomes creepy instead.
It becomes painfully obvious if you have two of the same letter in a row that are exactly the same. I’ve only found a couple of fonts that have that variability within a single letter and it’s pretty stunning how big of a difference it makes
But not standard postcards or mass mailers.
An example: I worked for an apparel company selling custom apparel (shirts and hoodies mostly) to army Battalions/Companies/Platoons…
We managed to grab 28% market share of an army base for $150.00 by sending a sales letter with a knock out offer and a Rubik’s cube (there were actually two rounds of mailers but the total of both of them was $150)
Had the company’s supply chain not imploded it should’ve brought as much as $300,000 in gross profits of the course of the year. I’d say a 2000x ROI is not bad for a week of work and a couple hundred dollars in materials.
I think lumpy mailers à la The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes are a phenomenal way to cut through the clutter with CPM‘s skyrocketing and conversion rates plummeting for PPC marketing.
Here's another interesting stat: Joe Girard is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Greatest Salesman." Ave car salesmen would sell ~5 cars/month and Joe sold 6-7/day.
He attributed his success to one tactic: handwritten notes to customers https://www.handwrite.io/case-studies/joe-girard-worlds-grea...
Love it, thanks for the comment
I’d be interested in learning more about just their handwriting tech and if they could parse it out from the rest of their printing and shipping process
Price/card goes down with higher plans. Enterprise approaches cost as we have printers in house.
The "tech" is a bunch of robots (not self-aware) in a room writing 24-7
We've had a decent sample size thus far of DTC brands using the handwriting. Mostly for "VIP-thank-yous" or founder/influencer-driven brands.
But results are encouraging. Across our 000s of stores we are seeing 1) increase in end customer spend and 2) increase in frequency of purchase (retention) for stores that use the handwriting.
The blog owner for this openly injects adz right before the main content, and after, so I wouldn’t take anything they say with any seriousness.
Maybe it's a coconut vs. peach culture thing?
Then again maybe shop owners will feel rude if they don't join the "common courtesy" of putting in thank you notes, and so your HTYNAAS might have a chance after all. You just need to guilt-trip them into buying it. I say this tongue-in-cheek, it'd be awful if we wasted money, time and paper because "thank you for shopping" notes became obligatory.
/it’s just a hobby thing I run for my rocket buddies
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.
Do you? Is growth so imperative that any end justifies it?
I basically don't use twitter, but I find myself on the platform in rants about how exploitive and manipulative some people are willing to be.
There is one company that targets vunerable people with their relatively affordable Veblen goods to make them feel socially insecure if they buy an Android instead. It's so obvious when you read about it, but it's masked in edgy advertising.
Reading about a company's marketing strategy is probably not good for my health.
"Apple products are classified as Veblen products, because most often users choose them, guided by the big name of the brand and believing that the possession of this technology will increase their status in society."
https://lkrvk.com/the-veblen-effect-how-price-increases-affe...
1. the shirt
2. you're giving money to Balenciaga to go out there and tell people how great owners of Balenciaga shirts are. You're paying them to do some marketing on your behalf, in a way.
Per wiki
>A Veblen good would be something where the demand increases as the price increases.
Shirts with logos are actually priced lower than shirts with logos. They might signal that someone can ship at an outlet mall rather than Walmart, but not much more. All the high end clothing will not have conspicuous logos.
https://www.saksfifthavenue.com/product/balenciaga-large-fit...
I wonder if there’s a dip with mid/high end products, but the “very high end” “designer” brands are very logo centric.
I employ people that earn $15 to $20 per hour with no benefits that use Apple products like iPhones, MacBook airs, and air pods.
We have our own in the upper middle class and we are similarly exploited. Luxury cars + a honorable cause is one that comes to mind.
Marketing can target insecurities but it doesn't need to be insecurity based. I just find that most egregious. Advertising "new, better, faster,tech" seems like the opposite end of this.
> "Apple products are classified as Veblen products, because most often users choose them, guided by the big name of the brand and believing that the possession of this technology will increase their status in society."
As if people might not be choosing Apple products like iPhones because of their proven track record of lasting much longer and being more desirable for the qualities of the product in and of themselves.
When people buy a Patek Phillipe watch, that might have the claim of being bought with the intent to signal status. A Patek Philippe watch tells time no better than any $15 watch.
But the implication that Apple products are mainly bought due to vanity needs to be supported by data. They have a reputation of being more durable, lasting longer, having more consistent user interfaces, better battery life, real life support from Apple employees in Apple stores, integrated software, primarily non ad supported business model, less known for malware, etc.
If I were poorer, it would be kind of insulting to think I would not value any of that and I am paying $200 to $500 for an Apple product than the cheapest alternative product simply to signal status.
Edit: as an illustration, Toyotas usually cost more than some other brands, but I do not see anyone claiming people are buying Toyotas in order to status signal. Or a Leatherman tool versus a Harborfreight tool.
I understand that at the very poor end, not buying the cheapest anything could signal status, but that is very different than buying something to signal status, which is what Veblen goods are about.
The bigger ramifications were ones I noticed myself. I wasn’t included in group texts organizing things where I usually would have before. I was still invited to things. Just no longer part of the organization messages. It was very subtle things like that where you notice people are treating you slightly different than they used to. Nothing major or dealbreaking but enough to make you realize there’s something there if you’re observant.
It’s tough to explain but the circles I’m in are so used to iPhones, that deviating from normality causes people to perceive you as no longer part of the collective group.
Although, I can see there being an issue if someone was not using iMessage or WhatsApp.
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.
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
People who do not see it are most easily exploited by it. For example a person with low self-esteem who does (often unconsciously) signal it to others even if it worsens his situation even more.
I agree with this in general - but some interactions really are more about mutual feeling-good, than about power struggles. Of course, those interactions are necessarily with people who are close to us.
I think the better way to put this would be:
In every interaction *with strangers* you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests.It's one thing to be happy for your friend's success, it's another thing to watch your friend have all the things that you want in life but can't get, on a regular basis.
Of course, one could ask whether or not that friend has the responsibility to share his success with you, or whether or not it is right to feel that they do. Those are tricky questions, and asking them still doesn't stop ugly emotions from appearing. And since friendships are mostly based on good emotions, bad emotions cause issues.
Human interactions are simple in theory, but very complex in practice.
However there is a visible minority that is about exploitation.
Handwritten thank you notes no longer increase sales
Back in the day, I used to write a handwritten note with every single box I sent out. Since I had often had a conversation with the customer prior to that, I could often include some personal detail, showing that the message was not generic but truly written for that person. (I did have a generic message that I would use in a minority of cases.)
It does take a little bit of dedication and love of the customer to do this over and over again, so I'm not convinced shady, unscrupulous marketers would do it.
Caveat: My business eventually failed, so...
Even then, Wal*Mart will never send you a thank you note - the cost of postage alone is too high. However car salesmen have long ago figured out it is worth writing a thank you - it only takes a few repeat customers to make the time and postage worth it.
That said, if you are a small business a handwritten thank you is good advice. Very few small business run a many customers with a low profit business model (only retail), and as such you are probably in one area where a handwritten thank you will help.
One of the mottos I saw - “Personalized Handwritten Direct Mail at Scale” (!) :)
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.
The midtown locations in New York are also incredibly efficient. They take orders on iPads in the line and the order is done by the time you get to the front.
If seller A is offering the above but no handwritten note, and seller B is not offering the above at the level of seller A, but is offering a handwritten note, I will chose seller A every time.
This thread makes me think I should possibly assign negative value for a hand written note.
I frequent a local store that sells boutique art supplies. Natural paints and that sort of thing. They are very customer-focused, and while hand-written thank-yous aren't something they do, if they started doing them I wouldn't be surprised. They know and appreciate their customers, and were particularly good during COVID, as the owners had health issues that made them concerned. They survived, partially due to their customer service, which included direct messaging as required to make sure people were able to shop and get their purchases easily and safely.
Hard disagree.
I've never had chicken that is rubbery/contains a tendon from CFA, it's basically guaranteed to happen every time I try Cane's, to the point where I've basically stopped eating there.
It's a sign to me that they only go "skin deep" on quality, because it's not "inedible" but while you're eating the last thing I want is a bite of it to be rubbery and fall apart in my hand because of it.
They have fairly good customer service, not sure if it's better then McDonald though... but their food though, it isn't good.
One thing you can look at is the nutrition label. Total calorie counts aren't so useful IMO, but Raising Cane's reports that their foods have unhealthy trans fats, while Chick-fil-a reports 0 trans fats.
Raising Cane's makes me sick whenever I get it, whereas Chick-fil-a is extremely well digested for me.
Do you eat a lot of junk food generally in your diet? That could be one reason why maybe your gut bacteria are craving the worse quality food & causing you to not enjoy CFA as much.
No. Though I will admit that I've had access to Chick-fil-a since the 80s, so it's kind of blase to me now. Newness has a quality of its own, I guess.
No, but you're going to make the claim anyways, aren't you?
>but as best I can tell Chick-fil-a has far superior food quality than Raising Cane's. Chick-fil-a holds their ingredients & preparation to the same high standard as they do their customer service, whereas Raising Cane's is much more hit-or-miss, a lot more like the McDonalds or Burger Kings out there.
Ah, yep. I can tell you've had some bad experiences with Raising Cane's.
>Raising Cane's makes me sick whenever I get it, whereas Chick-fil-a is extremely well digested for me.
Both of them make me sick! I can't digest either.
>Do you eat a lot of junk food generally in your diet? That could be one reason why maybe your gut bacteria are craving the worse quality food & causing you to not enjoy CFA as much.
I think I have to ask you the same question! Do you eat a lot of low quality fast food? That could be one reason your gut bacteria are craving food from a fast food joint instead of something that isn't deep fried and covered in Polynesian sauce.
> Do you eat a lot of low quality fast food? That could be one reason your gut bacteria are craving food from a fast food joint instead of something that isn't deep fried and covered in Polynesian sauce.
No, I don't, which is why I don't crave fast food. I get Chick-fil-a once or twice a month for fun.
Your comment about your preferred deep fried bird eatery being better than another commenter's preferred deep fried bird eatery just came off as bizarre.
My poison is better than your poison.
Free may apply less to CFA. One thing they don't get enough credit for is that they a decent amount more than their competitors who pay barely above minimum wage. It's clearly an investment that's payed off, but there is definitely a cost to it.
And Popeyes would be my go-to for chicken if it weren't so far away.
If you can fake that you've got it made.
― George Burns