jackassletters.com:Lessons
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Not all replies are written equally.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on business correspondence here, but I am getting a decent amount of replies from companies. From this I am able to note trends and identify what I think makes for a good letter. Some of these reflections should be obvious (but don't seem to be). You are welcome to disagree as long as you keep in mind I am correct. And some of what I will note reflects my obvious biases. I'm not going to apologize for what I like to read. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is!
If you have a staff of monkeys sending communications to monkeys, given eternity, you will not get Shakespeare. Cultivate talent. Get someone that knows how to do more than send boilerplate and give this person the discretion to address concerns, whether legitimate, or complete fallacy.
Seems like no one has a sense of humor these days. At least I am trying to be funny. You know you could try too! Please.
This will go a long way. I'm still getting replies trickling in to letters that I sent out weeks ago. Don't get me wrong, I don't have an expectation that my letter is a high priority, but if you are going to respond, do so quickly. Otherwise don't bother. A good letter that comes in 3 weeks after I've received a response from your competitor only serves to make me like your competitor.
Hand sign. With a pen. One obvious trend is to have a scanned signature. Many of these look like crap. This is the one place you actually get to give your soulless boilerplate letter a small amount of personality. Nothing says, "You're really not worth our time" like a crappy scanned signature. No, don't get a stamp, sign it! Or hire a poorly paid intern to do it for your busy ass.
Unless your name is Cher or Fabio you don't get to pretend to have achieved the level of recognition necessary to not need a full name. I provided you with mine. Give me the courtesy of doing so in return.
I know there are a lot of nut cases out there, crazies who will write crazy letters, potentially dangerous people you might not want calling you at home offering to pick up your kids from school, so then use a pseudonym. I don't know you from Adam Jones (see, Mr. Jones uses two names), so this is a damn fine name to use even if you're actually named something like Julia Jacob Jinglehiemer-Smith.
I'm not your friend. We are not on a first name basis. I didn't sign my name "Christopher." I used my full name, you should as well. Barring this, a "Mr. Jorgensen" will work. Though, I guess we can be on a first name basis if you do want me picking your kids up from school.
In a day and age where competition for advertising attention is getting fierce, and consumers are getting better at ignoring marketing, to have a chance to actively engage a pair of eyeballs should not be a wasted opportunity.
Even if I am not a current customer, how you respond will probably dictate if I ever will be. You have no idea what kind of impression you are creating with your advertising dollars, but for the cost of a stamp, an envelope, and a little time you get to tightly focus your message in a way you can't through any other medium. Don't squander this.
Almost any advertising medium will cost a bit more than sending a reply to a customer who has gone out of his way to try to form an active relationship with your organization. View a letter as a marketing/advertising chance. It cost the person writing a letter $0.42 to do so. Rewarding this person at least this much for writing isn't too much to ask. Chances are, you run coupons for more than this every week!
You wouldn't set out to create boring piss-poor ads, so why send boring piss-poor letters? I fall asleep after the second paragraph of most of the letters I get back. No excuse for this. I am guessing most of the letters a company/individual/organization gets aren't boilerplate, so why respond in a lesser manner?
Yes, I said to view a customer letter as a chance to advertise, to market, but please try to be subtle. Some of the replies I have received have been a ball peen hammer right between the eyes with a followup to the temple! Yes, ignore anything I write and just send out crap! A flyer or brochure telling me about the organization I care enough about to write doesn't cut it. I already know anything you can tell me if I like your company, if I don't, guess what, I don't care, and I'll probably not write and just move on.
As much as you would like there to be, sorry, there isn't a way to contact the people who couldn't give a rat's ass about you or your product. But guess what! Some who do care about what you produce, but are unhappy with some aspect, or maybe even like this, and might just write you! You should take great care not to alienate these people. Respond, and do so quickly! Remember, they are probably already customers if they are writing, you can only screw up at this point.
If you choose to only scan the letter, picking out what you think are the keywords that need addressing, without actually paying attention to the content and context, well, someone is likely to make an ass out of your company.
Generally, when I am writing I am being a bit of an idiot (a bit?). If you don't bother to address my concerns, all you are doing is managing to perpetuate a sense of disappointment. Ignore me for a minute, but when someone takes the time to actually write a physical letter, pays the postage to send it, and anxiously awaits a reply. If you're not going to bother to actually answer the questions in the letter, why answer the letter at all?
Complete nutter whackjobs will write. Crazy loons will send you mail. Off the wall idiots will have opinions. Be prepared for these. If you do nothing more that scan for keywords you will look like an idiot with your reply. Read the letter. Maybe do a small amount of research into the sender (google is your friend). Make an informed decision on how to respond (or not). Sending off boilerplate letters to idiots will only serve to make you look like an idiot.
But remember, even idiots have opinions, they aren't always wrong, and they're still consumers. I can honestly say that some of the replies I have gotten, and some of the letters that have gone unanswered, have influenced how I am spending my future discretionary dollars. Not every letter that has gone out the door has been an illegitimate complaint, yet for the most part the "real" ones have been ignored. And maybe I am suffering from the boy who cried wolf syndrome, but I can't believe all these places researched me and realized I should be ignored. I've stopped shopping at some of these places, which I probably would most likely have done anyway, and I wouldn't have felt bad about no longer patronizing a particular establishment regardless (it's my money, I can decide how it's spent). This said, the complaints did indeed give the recipients a chance to keep a positive relationship with me.
And I question the premise that just because I am an ass that I am unworthy of response. I have a soapbox here. I'm using it. Ignoring me only serves to allow my side of the story to be the only one told. I'm being fair. I put up my letters "as is." I put up the replies "as is," and even go so far to scan the original so people can compare what I am transcribing, to what was actually sent. I am also going through and giving my criticsm of the replies, but it doesn't have to end here. Comments are enabled, if an entitie feels abused or misrepresented, it's pretty easy to go on the record and present the real facts. Anyone can do this; readers of this site or the marketing department of your company. I won't edit or delete, but I may chime in on one. This is a chance for a dialog, I'm not going anywhere, so ignoring me doesn't make me look bad.
