KQ Article

Want a powerful tool for increasing sales and increasing customer trust? Warm up your longhand.

Although direct marketers have tried a variety of personalization techniques to boost response rates, it is the old-fashioned handwritten note that always seems to prevail as the most effective. In 1989, Maheux, Legault and Lambert wrote a paper that explored the problem of poor physician response rates to mailed surveys. The study revealed that after a simple “thank you” note was handwritten on the survey, response rates skyrocketed by a whopping 41 percent.

In Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive, Robert Cialdini shares the result of a survey that tested three communication formats: a printed letter, a printed letter with a handwritten message, and a printed letter with a handwritten message on a Post-it Note.

Here were the response rates: 36 percent for the plain printed cover letter, 48 percent with the addition of the handwritten note, and more than 75 percent with the Post-it. A “reciprocity effect” likely caused this boost — the recipient recognizes that the sender apparently put some personal effort into the mailing, and then is more likely to reciprocate with some effort of his or her own. The more personalized the message, the more likely the response.

Getting personal with Boomers and Millennials
As the Collaborative delved into the research on ways to sell multiple products and services to Baby Boomers and Millennials in times of distrust, we wanted to uncover techniques that made the sale and forged greater customer trust at the same time.

We’ve unearthed many fascinating findings along the way, but one of them shouldn’t have surprised us. Our research verified the tremendous impact that personalized, handwritten notes had on both generating sales and earning trust. The customers and members we spoke to were very clear in their opinions that simple options, written down just for them, positively impacted their trust and made them more willing to make a purchase.

The impact of handwriting options and comparisons for customers led us to develop a concept we refer to as Sketch Selling:^SM a twist on the yellow Post-it Note designed for the modern-day front-line banker. Sketch Selling instructs banking professionals to use a sales process in a paper format that helps document sales opportunities and options for customers or members.

Why do we consider Sketch Selling a significant finding? Because it not only seems to enhance selling effectiveness, it also seems to build trust. This is an important distinction, because closing the sale alone is no longer enough to create a loyal, profitable long-term customer or member.

>Learn more about Sketch Selling

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