February 11, 2025 • 33 mins
David Wachs, founder and CEO of Handwritten, joins the show to discuss how automated handwritten notes can create meaningful customer connections at scale. He and Alex explore the power of personalized outreach, the role of robotics in writing thank-you notes, and how businesses can use this approach to surprise, delight, and build stronger relationships with their customers.
Chapters:
00:00 - Why handwritten notes still matter
02:22 - Introducing David Wachs of Handwritten
02:36 - How robots write handwritten notes
04:09 - Scaling personalization with automation
05:57 - The power of thank-you notes in business
10:29 - Inside Handwrytten’s robot-powered facility
13:41 - Handwritten notes as a CS game-changer
16:04 - Turning complaints into superfans
23:07 - How handwritten notes surprise and delight
25:58 - Common mistakes to avoid with automation
30:16 - The role of data in personalized outreach
Enjoy! I know I sure did…
David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwachs/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Everybody is sending emails and text messages and
tweets and everything else andbecause of that it's my belief.
It's all kind of noise, butsending a handwritten note
really kind of breaks through.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Once again, welcome to the Digital Customer
Experience Podcast with me, AlexTurkovich, so glad you could
join us here today and everyweek as we explore how digital
can help enhance the customerand employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
(00:38):
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Greetings and welcome back toepisode 91 of the Digital CX
Podcast, the show where we talkabout all things digital in CX.
My name is Alex Tergovich, sopleased to have you along for
the ride today, where I'mpleased to bring you an awesome
(01:00):
conversation I had with DavidWex, who isn't a staple in the
CS community.
He is founder and CEO ofHandwritten handwritten with a Y
, w-r-y-t-t-e-n and I haverecently used Handwritten I've
also talked about it on the showa little bit to send literal
Handwritten notes out tocustomers at certain events.
(01:21):
We did our holiday cards thispast season through handwritten
and it's literal robotshandwriting notes to your
customers for certain events andI feel like the reason why I
felt like it was a really,really important conversation to
bring to you is because itcombines this thing that I've
(01:44):
been preaching, which is thatcombination of digital and human
, where we can combine yourdigital emotions with human
sentiment and human engagement.
And you know, what better thana handwritten note to tell
somebody that you actually care,or tell your customers that you
care about them?
So please enjoy thisconversation with David Wax of
(02:07):
Handwritten, because I sure did.
David, I'd like to welcome youto the show.
That sounded very like I wasabout to tell you off or
something.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, you're scolding me.
Thank you, Alex.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm coming.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, we've been working on this for a little bit
.
You are founder and CEO ofhandwritten, which is super cool
.
I've actually talked about youon several episodes.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about what you do at
handwritten?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Sure, the whole idea of handwritten is to allow
people to connect throughhandwritten notes at scale.
Everybody is sending emails andtext messages and tweets and
everything else and because ofthat it's my belief it's all
kind of noise, but sending ahandwritten note really kind of
breaks through.
The problem is nobody has thetime the postage, the paper, all
(02:59):
that.
So we allow you to do it atscale by using robots.
So we have 175 to 200 robotshere in our facility in Phoenix.
Each robot holds a real pen andwe print the card.
So you can kind of do like adesign your own card.
You print the card, we write onthe card, we stuffed it in an
(03:21):
envelope, write on the envelope,stamp it and mail it.
So that's what we do and, um,we do about 20 000 of these a
day for everything fromnon-profits to individuals to
car dealers etc.
And it's my belief we're thelargest in the world, but you
know, maybe somebody else isdoing more, I'm not sure.
We're certainly the oldest pureplay player in the game.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is insane to me, by the way, like when I first
learned about it and when Ifirst learned about you and
stuff like that, I was like, yes, because.
So there's a couple of thingshere.
First off, I've always beenthis really staunch believer in
the combination of digital andhuman to serve the customer.
And you are.
Essentially.
What you're doing is theepitome of that.
170-ish robots, yes, 20,000 aday.
(04:07):
That throughput is insane.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's a lot to keep track of and we are constantly
building new systems to do that.
But yeah, so that's really whatwe try to master is keeping
track of it all at scale, and Ithink we do a good job, but
there's always room forimprovement.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, I shared this with you.
We hadn't really spent a lot oftime together when I did this,
but a part of my new gig.
We wanted to send out holidaycards and so I was like, hey, I
know a guy and it was super coolbecause we uploaded I don't
know a few hundred addresses and, a couple of clicks later,
designed a card and off to themail and I sent myself one as a
test, obviously because I wantedto see what it was all about.
(04:48):
And the thing that struck me iswe all have gotten this kind of
mailer before that'shandwritten but it's obviously
like printed, whereas your stuffit looks handwritten and the
styles that you choose andwhatever.
We were super impressed by it.
So you aren't sponsoring theshow or anything like that.
(05:08):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And you did it at our most busy time of year.
So thank you, I did yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So the pressure test passed for sure.
But ultimately, I think there'sa lot of power in this whole
thing.
Just because we've been talkingabout when our customers quote
unquote, graduate fromimplementation, we should 1000%
automate a handwritten note thatgoes out right and you do cool
stuff like you can use tokensand insert first name and do all
(05:34):
that kind of fun stuff right.
So we're talking about thatkind of stuff and I think that
the human element needs to bepart of all digital motions,
whether it's a card, whetherit's a quick follow up phone
call, whether it's some kind ofsocial acknowledgement or
whatever.
And I think this is one ofthose tools in the toolkit for a
(05:54):
digital practitioner to use.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, and that's your point on automation.
I mean, that's really what wepreach.
Like we have a plugin forSalesforce, but if you don't
automate through Salesforce andyou just add a button that says
send handwritten note, they doit in a one-off fashion.
Yeah, the first 10 will go out,but then good luck after that.
So we really want people toautomate, not just because it's
(06:18):
good for us financially or keepsour lights on, but because it
keeps you doing what you need todo and kind of your internal
compliance and, you know, makingsure everybody has a
consistently good userexperience.
So yeah, like if you sign upfor a big plan with us, we'll
automate a handwritten note toyou from me, we'll have my
signature on it, which we dosignatures and all that and then
(06:40):
I'll include like a little giftswag kit with some handwritten
cool stuff.
But there's a book called I hadit on my desk actually Creating
Superfans.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, that's a good book.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
If you have it on your show, I recommend you do.
But she talks about what itmeans to create superfans and
we've implemented a lot of that,the S.
So super stands for somethinglike the S is share your story.
So when I send out these notessaying, hey, alex, thanks so
much for investing inhandwritten, I started this
company because yada, yada, yada, yada and I try to then create
(07:16):
that personal connection withour big clients.
So the medium, but then it'salso the content, and the
content is so important.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah for sure.
Content, and the content is soimportant.
Yeah for sure.
Hopefully the intent is thatthe receiver doesn't know it was
written by a robot right.
Yeah.
So, speaking of that journey,tell me a little bit more about
that.
What was the impetus to startit, what's your background in,
what led you to it and what wasthe humble beginnings of
Handwritten?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So Handwritten started.
Prior to Handwritten I ran atext messaging company for 10
years eight years and then Isold it in two more, so 10 and
that company was.
We actually started in the realestate space where you tend
this would be.
This is a long time ago, it'sbefore the iPhone and all that.
So you drive by a house, you'dwant info on the house.
(08:02):
There'd be an empty flyer boxand there was no Zillow.
Yet You'd see a sign on the topof the real estate sign.
It would say text X to 30364 toget info on the house.
You'd text that special code.
You'd get info on the house.
The realtor would get a lead.
Then we kind of pivoted awayfrom realtors to just general
purpose texting and we workedwith clients like Abercrombie
(08:25):
Fitch and Toys R Us.
We were sending a million textsa day just for Abercrombie Jeez
and sold that company.
So at that point I had 10 yearsof messaging experience, right
like sending a message.
So then I went from a quick,short message to a long, slow
message.
You know what I mean A textmessage that was read
immediately and deleted.
(08:46):
We did handwritten notes whichare savored and kept.
So that's kind of where thatcame from.
And I'm not saying handwrittennotes are better than texts or
vice versa they serve differentpurposes.
But I will say, handwrittennotes these days really help you
stand out, because not verymany people are doing them.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It's funny.
So when guests come on the showor if somebody contributes to
the show in some meaningful way,I've been sending out
handwritten notes with a littlebit of swag, kind of what you
described earlier.
This is, of course, before meknowing about you.
There is a lot to be said forthat handwritten communication,
because so many people justdon't do it.
We're busy, we havenotifications flying left and
(09:27):
right.
The last thing you think aboutdoing at the end of the day is
sitting down to write that noteand collecting your thoughts.
Enough to do that.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
In the olden days we used to write a lot with our
hands and we don't do thatanymore, and I for one have
noticed that just handwritingstuff, like after two or three
cards, I'm like yeah, I knowthere's all those studies on on
being appreciative, and ifyou're appreciative and say
thank you, it makes you happierand I think there's a lot of
truth to that too.
(09:56):
So there's a ton of benefits ofthis, and this really has
nothing to do with my company.
It's just there's magic tosending a handwritten note with
an I.
But when you get to a pointwhere you can't send enough of
those, then call a company likehandwritten with a Y and we can
help you.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So if, if I were to walk into your production
facility today, I'm picturingkind of a white room type
situation, probably somewhatnoisy, a lot of activity gotta
wear earring protection like.
Is it a clean room type thing?
It's like down and dirtywarehouse it's actually very
nice.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Warehouse space is expensive right now for whatever
reason, so instead we got agreat deal on some space that
used to be a big mortgage office, so it's an office.
We ripped out all cubicles.
We don't need the high ceilingsof a warehouse and in Arizona
that becomes very difficult,very expensive to air condition.
So we have high ceilings for anoffice, but not high ceilings
(10:53):
for a warehouse, and we justhave rows and rows of robots
stacked three high, and there'srobots that are set aside for
envelopes, robots that are setaside for notes printing.
We have two large-scale digitalpresses to print custom cards
and then card cutting machinesand envelope insertion machines
and just a lot of mail housestuff is in here.
(11:16):
But as far as clean room, it'sclean because I'm an eat freak
for the office, but it's notclean room and it's actually
kind of on the quiet side.
Nowadays Our new robots arepretty quiet.
So, it's interesting, it's notwhat people expect.
And then there's a whole otherelement of the office where
we're building new robots.
So it's a bunch of kids sittingturning screwdrivers and we've
(11:40):
got 3D printers and lasercutters and circuit boards that
we design and get made in Chinaand shipped to us.
So there's a lot of it's reallyan art and a science in one
building.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
It sounds like it.
You'll have to send me apicture and I can include it in
the show notes or something.
But we just got into 3Dprinting at our household.
Is this like the size of therobot we're talking about, like
a standard 3D printer size?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, it's kind of like the size of a laser printer
in cubic volume.
So it's about yay, big, maybetwo to three feet wide or two to
three feet long and about thesame wide and a foot and a half
tall.
The big thing is reliablyfeeding paper.
Feeding paper is easy.
Feeding stuffed envelopes orenvelopes in general is
difficult.
(12:28):
That's why when you get yourlaser printer at home or
whatever it's, one at a time,it's because that poofiness and
that inconsistency of the flapside and the non it just makes
it very hard to feed.
So we've put a lot of effortinto building reliable feeders
of stuffed envelopes and we'reon iteration like five for that.
(12:48):
But yeah, we use 3D printers.
We used to use very expensiveones and now we've kind of moved
downstream.
And it's interesting becausethe 3D printers are XYZ
coordinates and our handwritingrobots are XY and then Z is pen
up and down.
So it's very similar technologyto what's inside a 3D printer.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Fascinating.
I feel like I could go on andon about this, but it's also
maybe members of our audiencedon't appreciate the technical
side of it as much, but it'ssuper, super cool.
So I'd love to talk a littlebit more about kind of the use
cases.
We've talked about the basicuse case of sending a thank you
card at the end of something orthose kinds of things.
(13:32):
But I'm sure you have a filedrawer full of interesting use
cases that folks have used,handwritten for.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Well, what I'd like to say is if you do anything too
unique, it becomes a promotionor a campaign and not a CRM
initiative.
I like to keep things easy andleave them a CRM.
So what does that mean?
That means thank you for yourorder or thank you for your
business.
Most of what we do is thank you.
(14:01):
I'd say 80% of what we doaround here is thank you notes.
And then the other part isbirthday, anniversary,
anniversary of business, andthen other, but the number one
is thank you.
I always preach on podcasts whatI call a full stop thank you,
which means you're not askingthem to refer a friend, you're
(14:21):
not asking them to use a coupon,you're just saying thank you,
because if you do anything else,you're washing away the thank
you and insincerity.
So don't do that.
The fact that somebody choseyou or chose your company or
your product, that deserves athank you.
In most use cases I'd say andnobody does it.
And if you do it, you'll standout.
(14:42):
And then people say well,what's the ROI on that?
And then I get into aphilosophical debate with myself
of, like, what's the matterwith people where they need an
ROI if they don't do?
But better said by a guy namedAlbert Einstein.
He said not everything thatmatters can be measured and not
everything that can be measuredmatters.
(15:03):
To fully quantify the ROI isgoing to be very difficult.
What you could do is along-term A-B test where you
send thank yous to some peopleand your jerks to other people
and you don't you knowinappreciative to the other, and
then see the lift there.
But I can give you some cleveruse cases.
We have a mailbox company.
(15:24):
It's a snack box company.
Okay, they send snacks to youroffice and they found that when
they screwed up maybe theydelayed the box or it had the
wrong snacks or never arrived orwhatever They'd follow up with
another snack box full of swagand that type of thing and a
handwritten note apologizing.
And they found that thosecustomers that had the win back,
(15:47):
the apology, et cetera,actually had a higher lifetime
value than people that werenever screwed up with in the
first place.
So then, a obviously send thewin back.
But why don't we send the winback?
Why don't we screw up witheverybody and win back everybody
?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Hey, I want to have a brief chat with you about this
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(16:26):
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Now back to the show.
Yeah, yeah, that's such a smartthing and I've definitely found
(16:49):
that throughout my career iswhen something bad happens.
I almost look forward to theopportunity because A it's kind
of like a fun little game andchallenge, trying to deescalate
and solve the solution and allthat kind of stuff.
But it's also your opportunityto show your true colors, who
(17:09):
you are, how you operate, whatyour philosophy is as a company
and, to your point, like ninetimes out of 10, if you recover
well and you're sincere andyou're forthright with a great
solution and all that kind ofstuff, you're going to build
lifetime customers versus ifeverything's just hunky dory
moving right along.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, I mean before the show.
You asked me if I had anyexamples of companies doing CS
right and I got to say I'mrenovating my backyard.
We ordered some grillingequipment from BBQGuyscom.
The side burner came to myhouse.
It was expensive, it was like$1,000 or $30,000.
It came and it looked likesomebody had jabbed the box with
(17:50):
a forklift.
It was just destroyed.
First of all, they shipped it.
It was a big heavy box full ofstuff.
They shipped it and arrived thenext day, which was super
impressive.
Then, second of all, I calledmy designated contact at BBQGuys
and I told them what happened.
The next all I called mydesignated contact of barbecue
guys and I told them whathappened and the next day I had
a replacement and they followedup with me.
(18:12):
I didn't have to follow up withthem.
They, their head of customerservice called me and said we
just want to make sure you gotthe replacement, everything Okay
.
So it blew me away and it's allabout those, aren't?
You don't want to create thosemoments, yeah, or screwing up,
but when you do screw up, yougot to handle it appropriately
and they've really done a greatjob so when you had that talk
(18:33):
with the head of cs, there wereyou, like I know something that
could make this even better Idid not.
I did not.
I was just like, yeah, I came,thank you so very much and yeah,
but they really they did theright thing.
So that really went a far way.
You asked about use cases.
We have another client.
They're a piano tuner andthey're only in your house once
(18:56):
a year because your piano onlyneeds to be tuned once a year,
and then they have an automationset up to send that person a
thank you note saying thanks.
That handwritten note is oftenstanding up on the piano.
So not only is it open, notonly is it red, it is on display
(19:17):
, it is a billboard for thebrand on a piece of equipment or
a piece of furniture that isfree.
Of billboards I mean of anypiece of equipment or furniture
it's the most free.
So it's very unique in that itcuts through the damage, creates
that big of an emotionalresponse.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
It's right there next to the family portrait.
Exactly what would you say?
Your maybe rough percentages oftech versus tangible kind of a
goods provider using handwrittenkind of a goods provider using
(19:57):
handwritten.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Most are tangible, which is interesting because
they have a little bit of aharder.
They have to get the okay.
So our client mix is cardealers, it's nonprofits, it's
we do a lot with veterinarianservice providers, so there is a
huge opportunity there toassist them.
But they also have to connectsystems or whatever to get that
data in.
With online brands.
(20:19):
We have a Shopify plugin thatwithin five minutes you can set
up and then it willautomatically send every new
client a handwritten note, orafter they hit a certain
threshold of spend or whatever.
And we don't have that many ofthose.
But another story, a counterexample, was a perfume brand.
(20:39):
They make a very, very high-endcologne and perfume.
I was in the mall with my wifeand kids and we went into a
department store and thatdepartment store they had a
stanchion set up or whatever anarea set up for that cologne and
I walked up and I was showingmy wife and I said we do the
handwritten notes for thiscologne and the store clerk ran
over and said no, you don't, Ihave to write those notes myself
(21:01):
.
And then what was happening wasonline.
Their online sales werereceiving an automated
handwritten note every time andit was consistent and
appropriate.
Et cetera.
The offline sales, they left itto their store clerks and after
they were busy merchandisingand selling and clearing out the
(21:24):
cash register and all thatstuff, they never got around to
it, so the online has actually ahuge opportunity to create a
more personal experience thanthe offline.
Huge opportunity to create amore personal experience than
the offline and some crazy huhfor another luxury brand.
We handle both online andoffline.
Yeah, so well, with the offlinewe'll put in the name of the
clerk they worked with and theirphone number and all that stuff
(21:47):
that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Well, given, I mean, this audience is mostly SaaS
software CS, so maybe you'll seean uptick in SaaS software
companies coming on board.
When we first talked about thisamong my team, we were just
brainstorming all thesedifferent ideas, and I mean the
most obvious one is one I'vealready mentioned is a customer
(22:09):
gets through onboarding and wesend the owner or whoever a
thank you card or whatnot.
The customer gets throughonboarding and we send the owner
or whoever a thank you card orwhatnot.
But one of the things that Ipreach with regards to customer
success and digital customersuccess is it's very easy for us
(22:30):
to routinely look for theopportunities to engage when
something goes wrong, but, onthe flip side, we don't do
nearly enough to celebrate ourcustomer wins Right, nearly
enough to celebrate our customerwins right.
And so I think, as we weretalking about this, we were like
okay, what are those momentswhere we want to capitalize on?
What are those little momentsof success?
Maybe it's a new user that'sonboarded, although that could
get excessive.
Maybe it's somebody completinga certain flow or upgrading to a
(22:51):
new module those little momentsthat you want to help celebrate
and solidify that the decisionwas a good one and we're happy,
the partnership, blah, blah blah, like all those kinds of things
, and so it was kind of fun justsitting down and thinking
through what the possibilitieswere.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, I mean, we have other clients that we have a
pet food brand that sends a cardthat can be turned into a hat,
a little happy birthday hat tothe animals on their birthday,
and then you're supposed to justtake a picture with this on
your pet's head and then there'ssome viral aspect there.
There's a lot of things you cando with this, a lot of fun
(23:29):
little things.
I try to steer away from thatbecause I think sometimes if you
get too creative, it's going tobecome a one shot, one and done
and you're not going to keep itongoing and people tend to
overthink stuff and want to bethe genius.
It's just thinking about wherein the life cycle can we do this
every time, all the time, tomake sure everybody has a
consistently good experience?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, and what doesn't erode from the intent,
which is to reward but also justdrive that positive sentiment
and do something meaningful?
Yeah, At the right time.
So I mean, you kind of alludedto it a couple of times, but
what have you seen?
That has just not worked orgone completely wrong completely
(24:19):
wrong?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
That's a good question.
What's not worked?
Well, we, I guess it works forthem, but I found it weird.
We have or had a client.
They were for a YouTube morningshow and if you join their fan
club and this is an old clientthey would send you a
handwritten note from us.
But they had a very it was thesame note every time.
(24:41):
Dear Alex, it's the exact samenote every time.
And they were sending us photosor screenshots off Instagram of
people so excited about this.
They posted to Instagram.
I said, well, or Twitter orwhatever.
And I said, well, why don't youmix it up?
It doesn't cost you anything tochange the language, so
everybody doesn't get the exactsame note.
And I just thought that createdkind of an insincerity.
(25:03):
They should have spent a littlebit of time just shuffling the
messages for a mattress company,an online mattress company.
They were using us for a longtime and then they stopped and
we said, well, why are youstopping?
They're including thesehandwritten notes in the boxes
of the mattresses.
And they said oh well, we didthat when we were a small
company and we're trying tocreate a personal relationship.
Now we're a big company and wedon't need to do that, and we're
(25:25):
just like oh, and argue withthat that's just how do you
can't argue with.
I don't want to insult myclients, I'll stop there.
So those are kind ofinteresting.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
The variables are very interesting there.
I think that's a very smartpoint, because if you're using
the same motion with the samekind of persona within a company
or within a target audience,chances are that at some point
they'll figure out that, oh,this is the exact same thing.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So we always say mix it up.
And there's ways to mix it upthat are painless on your side.
And, for example, with thismattress company, we included
little doodles, so like oneperson would get a picture of a
moon in the stars, hand-drawn,or somebody else would get
somebody dreaming of their cat,and we had a bunch of them.
(26:18):
So if you were to say,furnishing a new home, every
time you open a box you'd have adifferent surprise and delight
cool.
So there were some cool thingsthere too.
Some other bad ideas, I think,are making your message too long
oh you know, instead of we tryto limit you to 500 characters.
There's a couple reasons.
Number one our robots.
Actually, the longer the note,the longer it takes to write,
(26:41):
therefore the more expensive.
But we're also living in aTwitter generation where
everybody has 160 characters ofattention span.
So if you're going 500, you'rekind of reaching the asymptotic
limit of what people are willingto read.
People that do full lettersversus cards.
I think, A it's very expensivebecause we have to charge you
(27:03):
for robot time to do that.
B nobody's going to read it.
Nobody's going to believe that.
You sat down and you wrote, youknow, you pulled out a quill,
tip a feather and startedwriting my dearest Alex.
Nobody's going to believe it.
So keep it short, yeah.
Keep it focused on appreciation, Keep it in a card.
Those are that's kind of whatwe do.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I love it.
My son recently for Christmas.
He is kind of into vintagey,kind of 20s, teens, 20s, 30s
stuff.
He wanted a tap typewriter.
So we got him like arefurbished like vintage 20s,
mid-20s typewriter and the thingis so cool.
(27:48):
It brought back a lot ofmemories because I'm of a
certain age where we had atypewriter in the house and so
it was kind of cool.
But he's been using the snotout of it just typing various
things and it's such a cool,visceral thing that we're not
used to anymore.
It goes back to almost a lostform, that written communication
(28:09):
type.
Situation A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And the most important thing about a
handwritten note ideally anactual handwritten note is the
time and focus you put intowriting it, not the note itself.
And even if people know thatyou used a service like ours to
write a note, they know you atleast took a moment to think of
(28:32):
something different to do.
And while that's not the sameas sitting down and putting pen
to paper yourself, it's secondbest, I'd say.
So it really is somebodyequated and I found it very
interesting.
They said sending somebody ahandwritten note the next best
thing is walking into a meetingwith them and they take their
phone and turn it off.
Because when you send somebodya handwritten, you're basically
(28:58):
saying, okay'm gonna bedistraction free and think just
about you for the next fiveminutes for me to write this, um
.
So there's real value there andpeople really appreciate it,
because before this podcast Ihad to go in and turn off all my
email and teams and phone.
It's hard to find focus thesedays and people appreciate it
when you go out of your way todo that.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, for sure.
One of the things I wasthinking about earlier when we
were talking about integrationand all that kind of fun stuff,
is just like the data element ofthis, because I know in SaaS
software we struggle with cleancontact data and I think that's
a struggle everywhere becauseultimately, at the very least to
(29:38):
do this thing right, you needan address and we need probably
a first and last name, maybeideally and ideally it wouldn't
be like all caps first name andnormal last name, cause that's
like a dead giveaway kind ofsituation.
But you know you also do greatthings with being able to use
(29:59):
tokens within your messages too,so that if you wanted to thank
somebody for their purchase of aspecific thing, you could
include that in a token.
Uh, carefully, but it requiressome.
It requires some data prowessto be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
We're constantly having people say our bulk
upload tool is too difficult.
And I get it.
It's an Excel file.
Not everybody can use Excel.
There's other ways to do it.
There's a lot of ways we allowpeople to do it, but we haven't
found the perfect way WithZapier.
If you're familiar with Zapier,you can go in and do data
fields that way too.
Anybody that knows Zapiershould be able to figure it out.
(30:37):
It's not rocket science.
Another thing, to your point ofgotchas, things not to do,
especially when you're selling aproduct.
If you have an automation, Idon't recommend mentioning the
product name because it's goingto be like hey, Alex, thanks so
much for your purchase of thebifold leather.
(30:57):
Yeah, watch, with coin purseblk005 instead, what you want to
do is you want to go up to thecategory level?
Okay now, hey, thanks so muchfor your purchase of the wallet.
So that's how we've gottenaround that.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
A lot, if you like you can probably create an
alternate field that's specificfor handwritten or something.
Yeah, interesting, but that'sbeen a big thing we've learned.
That's great.
Well, look, I've really enjoyedkind of getting a peek behind
the curtain, so to speak, of thething that I tested.
That worked really well and I'ma huge fan of and we've already
connected Zapier.
We're going to get crazy withit a little bit, but to your
(31:38):
point, not too crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
But where can people kind of find you and engage with
you?
Obviously, handwrittencom, witha Y, it should.
I should mention yeah, pleasevisit handwrittencom
H-A-N-D-W-R-Y-T-T-E-N and ifyou're interested, go to
business and then hit samplesand get a free sample kit.
And I don't say much on socials, but you can connect with me on
LinkedIn.
I'm not going to sit there andhold my chin and wax poetic on
(32:00):
it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, hey, thanks for taking the time to chat with us
.
I'm hoping that the digitalleaders that are listening to
this, or the CS leaders that arelistening to this, check you
out and use it as, like I saidearlier, an additional tool in
your toolkit to be able tocreate those great customer
experiences.
But thanks for the time.
It was awesome chatting withyou.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Thanks, alex, right on.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of the
Digital CX Podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
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You can view the DigitalCustomer Success Definition
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(32:45):
other things that we're doing atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
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Lifetime Value aims to servethe content, video, audio
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They're offering services at asteep discount for a limited
(33:07):
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So navigate tolifetimevaluemediacom, go have a
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podcast sent you.
I'm alex trukovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
Everybody is sending emails and text messages and
tweets and everything else andbecause of that it's my belief.
It's all kind of noise, butsending a handwritten note
really kind of breaks through.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Once again, welcome to the Digital Customer
Experience Podcast with me, AlexTurkovich, so glad you could
join us here today and everyweek as we explore how digital
can help enhance the customerand employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
(00:38):
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Greetings and welcome back toepisode 91 of the Digital CX
Podcast, the show where we talkabout all things digital in CX.
My name is Alex Tergovich, sopleased to have you along for
the ride today, where I'mpleased to bring you an awesome
(01:00):
conversation I had with DavidWex, who isn't a staple in the
CS community.
He is founder and CEO ofHandwritten handwritten with a Y
, w-r-y-t-t-e-n and I haverecently used Handwritten I've
also talked about it on the showa little bit to send literal
Handwritten notes out tocustomers at certain events.
(01:21):
We did our holiday cards thispast season through handwritten
and it's literal robotshandwriting notes to your
customers for certain events andI feel like the reason why I
felt like it was a really,really important conversation to
bring to you is because itcombines this thing that I've
(01:44):
been preaching, which is thatcombination of digital and human
, where we can combine yourdigital emotions with human
sentiment and human engagement.
And you know, what better thana handwritten note to tell
somebody that you actually care,or tell your customers that you
care about them?
So please enjoy thisconversation with David Wax of
(02:07):
Handwritten, because I sure did.
David, I'd like to welcome youto the show.
That sounded very like I wasabout to tell you off or
something.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, you're scolding me.
Thank you, Alex.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm coming.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, we've been working on this for a little bit
.
You are founder and CEO ofhandwritten, which is super cool
.
I've actually talked about youon several episodes.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about what you do at
handwritten?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Sure, the whole idea of handwritten is to allow
people to connect throughhandwritten notes at scale.
Everybody is sending emails andtext messages and tweets and
everything else and because ofthat it's my belief it's all
kind of noise, but sending ahandwritten note really kind of
breaks through.
The problem is nobody has thetime the postage, the paper, all
(02:59):
that.
So we allow you to do it atscale by using robots.
So we have 175 to 200 robotshere in our facility in Phoenix.
Each robot holds a real pen andwe print the card.
So you can kind of do like adesign your own card.
You print the card, we write onthe card, we stuffed it in an
(03:21):
envelope, write on the envelope,stamp it and mail it.
So that's what we do and, um,we do about 20 000 of these a
day for everything fromnon-profits to individuals to
car dealers etc.
And it's my belief we're thelargest in the world, but you
know, maybe somebody else isdoing more, I'm not sure.
We're certainly the oldest pureplay player in the game.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is insane to me, by the way, like when I first
learned about it and when Ifirst learned about you and
stuff like that, I was like, yes, because.
So there's a couple of thingshere.
First off, I've always beenthis really staunch believer in
the combination of digital andhuman to serve the customer.
And you are.
Essentially.
What you're doing is theepitome of that.
170-ish robots, yes, 20,000 aday.
(04:07):
That throughput is insane.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's a lot to keep track of and we are constantly
building new systems to do that.
But yeah, so that's really whatwe try to master is keeping
track of it all at scale, and Ithink we do a good job, but
there's always room forimprovement.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, I shared this with you.
We hadn't really spent a lot oftime together when I did this,
but a part of my new gig.
We wanted to send out holidaycards and so I was like, hey, I
know a guy and it was super coolbecause we uploaded I don't
know a few hundred addresses and, a couple of clicks later,
designed a card and off to themail and I sent myself one as a
test, obviously because I wantedto see what it was all about.
(04:48):
And the thing that struck me iswe all have gotten this kind of
mailer before that'shandwritten but it's obviously
like printed, whereas your stuffit looks handwritten and the
styles that you choose andwhatever.
We were super impressed by it.
So you aren't sponsoring theshow or anything like that.
(05:08):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And you did it at our most busy time of year.
So thank you, I did yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So the pressure test passed for sure.
But ultimately, I think there'sa lot of power in this whole
thing.
Just because we've been talkingabout when our customers quote
unquote, graduate fromimplementation, we should 1000%
automate a handwritten note thatgoes out right and you do cool
stuff like you can use tokensand insert first name and do all
(05:34):
that kind of fun stuff right.
So we're talking about thatkind of stuff and I think that
the human element needs to bepart of all digital motions,
whether it's a card, whetherit's a quick follow up phone
call, whether it's some kind ofsocial acknowledgement or
whatever.
And I think this is one ofthose tools in the toolkit for a
(05:54):
digital practitioner to use.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, and that's your point on automation.
I mean, that's really what wepreach.
Like we have a plugin forSalesforce, but if you don't
automate through Salesforce andyou just add a button that says
send handwritten note, they doit in a one-off fashion.
Yeah, the first 10 will go out,but then good luck after that.
So we really want people toautomate, not just because it's
(06:18):
good for us financially or keepsour lights on, but because it
keeps you doing what you need todo and kind of your internal
compliance and, you know, makingsure everybody has a
consistently good userexperience.
So yeah, like if you sign upfor a big plan with us, we'll
automate a handwritten note toyou from me, we'll have my
signature on it, which we dosignatures and all that and then
(06:40):
I'll include like a little giftswag kit with some handwritten
cool stuff.
But there's a book called I hadit on my desk actually Creating
Superfans.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, that's a good book.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
If you have it on your show, I recommend you do.
But she talks about what itmeans to create superfans and
we've implemented a lot of that,the S.
So super stands for somethinglike the S is share your story.
So when I send out these notessaying, hey, alex, thanks so
much for investing inhandwritten, I started this
company because yada, yada, yada, yada and I try to then create
(07:16):
that personal connection withour big clients.
So the medium, but then it'salso the content, and the
content is so important.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah for sure.
Content, and the content is soimportant.
Yeah for sure.
Hopefully the intent is thatthe receiver doesn't know it was
written by a robot right.
Yeah.
So, speaking of that journey,tell me a little bit more about
that.
What was the impetus to startit, what's your background in,
what led you to it and what wasthe humble beginnings of
Handwritten?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So Handwritten started.
Prior to Handwritten I ran atext messaging company for 10
years eight years and then Isold it in two more, so 10 and
that company was.
We actually started in the realestate space where you tend
this would be.
This is a long time ago, it'sbefore the iPhone and all that.
So you drive by a house, you'dwant info on the house.
(08:02):
There'd be an empty flyer boxand there was no Zillow.
Yet You'd see a sign on the topof the real estate sign.
It would say text X to 30364 toget info on the house.
You'd text that special code.
You'd get info on the house.
The realtor would get a lead.
Then we kind of pivoted awayfrom realtors to just general
purpose texting and we workedwith clients like Abercrombie
(08:25):
Fitch and Toys R Us.
We were sending a million textsa day just for Abercrombie Jeez
and sold that company.
So at that point I had 10 yearsof messaging experience, right
like sending a message.
So then I went from a quick,short message to a long, slow
message.
You know what I mean A textmessage that was read
immediately and deleted.
(08:46):
We did handwritten notes whichare savored and kept.
So that's kind of where thatcame from.
And I'm not saying handwrittennotes are better than texts or
vice versa they serve differentpurposes.
But I will say, handwrittennotes these days really help you
stand out, because not verymany people are doing them.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It's funny.
So when guests come on the showor if somebody contributes to
the show in some meaningful way,I've been sending out
handwritten notes with a littlebit of swag, kind of what you
described earlier.
This is, of course, before meknowing about you.
There is a lot to be said forthat handwritten communication,
because so many people justdon't do it.
We're busy, we havenotifications flying left and
(09:27):
right.
The last thing you think aboutdoing at the end of the day is
sitting down to write that noteand collecting your thoughts.
Enough to do that.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
In the olden days we used to write a lot with our
hands and we don't do thatanymore, and I for one have
noticed that just handwritingstuff, like after two or three
cards, I'm like yeah, I knowthere's all those studies on on
being appreciative, and ifyou're appreciative and say
thank you, it makes you happierand I think there's a lot of
truth to that too.
(09:56):
So there's a ton of benefits ofthis, and this really has
nothing to do with my company.
It's just there's magic tosending a handwritten note with
an I.
But when you get to a pointwhere you can't send enough of
those, then call a company likehandwritten with a Y and we can
help you.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So if, if I were to walk into your production
facility today, I'm picturingkind of a white room type
situation, probably somewhatnoisy, a lot of activity gotta
wear earring protection like.
Is it a clean room type thing?
It's like down and dirtywarehouse it's actually very
nice.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Warehouse space is expensive right now for whatever
reason, so instead we got agreat deal on some space that
used to be a big mortgage office, so it's an office.
We ripped out all cubicles.
We don't need the high ceilingsof a warehouse and in Arizona
that becomes very difficult,very expensive to air condition.
So we have high ceilings for anoffice, but not high ceilings
(10:53):
for a warehouse, and we justhave rows and rows of robots
stacked three high, and there'srobots that are set aside for
envelopes, robots that are setaside for notes printing.
We have two large-scale digitalpresses to print custom cards
and then card cutting machinesand envelope insertion machines
and just a lot of mail housestuff is in here.
(11:16):
But as far as clean room, it'sclean because I'm an eat freak
for the office, but it's notclean room and it's actually
kind of on the quiet side.
Nowadays Our new robots arepretty quiet.
So, it's interesting, it's notwhat people expect.
And then there's a whole otherelement of the office where
we're building new robots.
So it's a bunch of kids sittingturning screwdrivers and we've
(11:40):
got 3D printers and lasercutters and circuit boards that
we design and get made in Chinaand shipped to us.
So there's a lot of it's reallyan art and a science in one
building.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
It sounds like it.
You'll have to send me apicture and I can include it in
the show notes or something.
But we just got into 3Dprinting at our household.
Is this like the size of therobot we're talking about, like
a standard 3D printer size?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, it's kind of like the size of a laser printer
in cubic volume.
So it's about yay, big, maybetwo to three feet wide or two to
three feet long and about thesame wide and a foot and a half
tall.
The big thing is reliablyfeeding paper.
Feeding paper is easy.
Feeding stuffed envelopes orenvelopes in general is
difficult.
(12:28):
That's why when you get yourlaser printer at home or
whatever it's, one at a time,it's because that poofiness and
that inconsistency of the flapside and the non it just makes
it very hard to feed.
So we've put a lot of effortinto building reliable feeders
of stuffed envelopes and we'reon iteration like five for that.
(12:48):
But yeah, we use 3D printers.
We used to use very expensiveones and now we've kind of moved
downstream.
And it's interesting becausethe 3D printers are XYZ
coordinates and our handwritingrobots are XY and then Z is pen
up and down.
So it's very similar technologyto what's inside a 3D printer.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Fascinating.
I feel like I could go on andon about this, but it's also
maybe members of our audiencedon't appreciate the technical
side of it as much, but it'ssuper, super cool.
So I'd love to talk a littlebit more about kind of the use
cases.
We've talked about the basicuse case of sending a thank you
card at the end of something orthose kinds of things.
(13:32):
But I'm sure you have a filedrawer full of interesting use
cases that folks have used,handwritten for.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Well, what I'd like to say is if you do anything too
unique, it becomes a promotionor a campaign and not a CRM
initiative.
I like to keep things easy andleave them a CRM.
So what does that mean?
That means thank you for yourorder or thank you for your
business.
Most of what we do is thank you.
(14:01):
I'd say 80% of what we doaround here is thank you notes.
And then the other part isbirthday, anniversary,
anniversary of business, andthen other, but the number one
is thank you.
I always preach on podcasts whatI call a full stop thank you,
which means you're not askingthem to refer a friend, you're
(14:21):
not asking them to use a coupon,you're just saying thank you,
because if you do anything else,you're washing away the thank
you and insincerity.
So don't do that.
The fact that somebody choseyou or chose your company or
your product, that deserves athank you.
In most use cases I'd say andnobody does it.
And if you do it, you'll standout.
(14:42):
And then people say well,what's the ROI on that?
And then I get into aphilosophical debate with myself
of, like, what's the matterwith people where they need an
ROI if they don't do?
But better said by a guy namedAlbert Einstein.
He said not everything thatmatters can be measured and not
everything that can be measuredmatters.
(15:03):
To fully quantify the ROI isgoing to be very difficult.
What you could do is along-term A-B test where you
send thank yous to some peopleand your jerks to other people
and you don't you knowinappreciative to the other, and
then see the lift there.
But I can give you some cleveruse cases.
We have a mailbox company.
(15:24):
It's a snack box company.
Okay, they send snacks to youroffice and they found that when
they screwed up maybe theydelayed the box or it had the
wrong snacks or never arrived orwhatever They'd follow up with
another snack box full of swagand that type of thing and a
handwritten note apologizing.
And they found that thosecustomers that had the win back,
(15:47):
the apology, et cetera,actually had a higher lifetime
value than people that werenever screwed up with in the
first place.
So then, a obviously send thewin back.
But why don't we send the winback?
Why don't we screw up witheverybody and win back everybody
?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Hey, I want to have a brief chat with you about this
show.
Did you know that roughly 60%of listeners aren't actually
subscribed to the show, onwhatever platform they're
listening to it on?
As you know, algorithms love,likes, follows, subscribes,
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If you get value out of thecontent, you listen regularly
and you want to help others todiscover the content as well,
(16:26):
please go ahead and follow theshow.
Leave a comment, leave a review.
Anything that you want to dothere really helps us to grow
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And while you're at it, go signup for the companion newsletter
that goes out every week atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
Now back to the show.
Yeah, yeah, that's such a smartthing and I've definitely found
(16:49):
that throughout my career iswhen something bad happens.
I almost look forward to theopportunity because A it's kind
of like a fun little game andchallenge, trying to deescalate
and solve the solution and allthat kind of stuff.
But it's also your opportunityto show your true colors, who
(17:09):
you are, how you operate, whatyour philosophy is as a company
and, to your point, like ninetimes out of 10, if you recover
well and you're sincere andyou're forthright with a great
solution and all that kind ofstuff, you're going to build
lifetime customers versus ifeverything's just hunky dory
moving right along.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, I mean before the show.
You asked me if I had anyexamples of companies doing CS
right and I got to say I'mrenovating my backyard.
We ordered some grillingequipment from BBQGuyscom.
The side burner came to myhouse.
It was expensive, it was like$1,000 or $30,000.
It came and it looked likesomebody had jabbed the box with
(17:50):
a forklift.
It was just destroyed.
First of all, they shipped it.
It was a big heavy box full ofstuff.
They shipped it and arrived thenext day, which was super
impressive.
Then, second of all, I calledmy designated contact at BBQGuys
and I told them what happened.
The next all I called mydesignated contact of barbecue
guys and I told them whathappened and the next day I had
a replacement and they followedup with me.
(18:12):
I didn't have to follow up withthem.
They, their head of customerservice called me and said we
just want to make sure you gotthe replacement, everything Okay
.
So it blew me away and it's allabout those, aren't?
You don't want to create thosemoments, yeah, or screwing up,
but when you do screw up, yougot to handle it appropriately
and they've really done a greatjob so when you had that talk
(18:33):
with the head of cs, there wereyou, like I know something that
could make this even better Idid not.
I did not.
I was just like, yeah, I came,thank you so very much and yeah,
but they really they did theright thing.
So that really went a far way.
You asked about use cases.
We have another client.
They're a piano tuner andthey're only in your house once
(18:56):
a year because your piano onlyneeds to be tuned once a year,
and then they have an automationset up to send that person a
thank you note saying thanks.
That handwritten note is oftenstanding up on the piano.
So not only is it open, notonly is it red, it is on display
(19:17):
, it is a billboard for thebrand on a piece of equipment or
a piece of furniture that isfree.
Of billboards I mean of anypiece of equipment or furniture
it's the most free.
So it's very unique in that itcuts through the damage, creates
that big of an emotionalresponse.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
It's right there next to the family portrait.
Exactly what would you say?
Your maybe rough percentages oftech versus tangible kind of a
goods provider using handwrittenkind of a goods provider using
(19:57):
handwritten.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Most are tangible, which is interesting because
they have a little bit of aharder.
They have to get the okay.
So our client mix is cardealers, it's nonprofits, it's
we do a lot with veterinarianservice providers, so there is a
huge opportunity there toassist them.
But they also have to connectsystems or whatever to get that
data in.
With online brands.
(20:19):
We have a Shopify plugin thatwithin five minutes you can set
up and then it willautomatically send every new
client a handwritten note, orafter they hit a certain
threshold of spend or whatever.
And we don't have that many ofthose.
But another story, a counterexample, was a perfume brand.
(20:39):
They make a very, very high-endcologne and perfume.
I was in the mall with my wifeand kids and we went into a
department store and thatdepartment store they had a
stanchion set up or whatever anarea set up for that cologne and
I walked up and I was showingmy wife and I said we do the
handwritten notes for thiscologne and the store clerk ran
over and said no, you don't, Ihave to write those notes myself
(21:01):
.
And then what was happening wasonline.
Their online sales werereceiving an automated
handwritten note every time andit was consistent and
appropriate.
Et cetera.
The offline sales, they left itto their store clerks and after
they were busy merchandisingand selling and clearing out the
(21:24):
cash register and all thatstuff, they never got around to
it, so the online has actually ahuge opportunity to create a
more personal experience thanthe offline.
Huge opportunity to create amore personal experience than
the offline and some crazy huhfor another luxury brand.
We handle both online andoffline.
Yeah, so well, with the offlinewe'll put in the name of the
clerk they worked with and theirphone number and all that stuff
(21:47):
that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Well, given, I mean, this audience is mostly SaaS
software CS, so maybe you'll seean uptick in SaaS software
companies coming on board.
When we first talked about thisamong my team, we were just
brainstorming all thesedifferent ideas, and I mean the
most obvious one is one I'vealready mentioned is a customer
(22:09):
gets through onboarding and wesend the owner or whoever a
thank you card or whatnot.
The customer gets throughonboarding and we send the owner
or whoever a thank you card orwhatnot.
But one of the things that Ipreach with regards to customer
success and digital customersuccess is it's very easy for us
(22:30):
to routinely look for theopportunities to engage when
something goes wrong, but, onthe flip side, we don't do
nearly enough to celebrate ourcustomer wins Right, nearly
enough to celebrate our customerwins right.
And so I think, as we weretalking about this, we were like
okay, what are those momentswhere we want to capitalize on?
What are those little momentsof success?
Maybe it's a new user that'sonboarded, although that could
get excessive.
Maybe it's somebody completinga certain flow or upgrading to a
(22:51):
new module those little momentsthat you want to help celebrate
and solidify that the decisionwas a good one and we're happy,
the partnership, blah, blah blah, like all those kinds of things
, and so it was kind of fun justsitting down and thinking
through what the possibilitieswere.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, I mean, we have other clients that we have a
pet food brand that sends a cardthat can be turned into a hat,
a little happy birthday hat tothe animals on their birthday,
and then you're supposed to justtake a picture with this on
your pet's head and then there'ssome viral aspect there.
There's a lot of things you cando with this, a lot of fun
(23:29):
little things.
I try to steer away from thatbecause I think sometimes if you
get too creative, it's going tobecome a one shot, one and done
and you're not going to keep itongoing and people tend to
overthink stuff and want to bethe genius.
It's just thinking about wherein the life cycle can we do this
every time, all the time, tomake sure everybody has a
consistently good experience?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, and what doesn't erode from the intent,
which is to reward but also justdrive that positive sentiment
and do something meaningful?
Yeah, At the right time.
So I mean, you kind of alludedto it a couple of times, but
what have you seen?
That has just not worked orgone completely wrong completely
(24:19):
wrong?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
That's a good question.
What's not worked?
Well, we, I guess it works forthem, but I found it weird.
We have or had a client.
They were for a YouTube morningshow and if you join their fan
club and this is an old clientthey would send you a
handwritten note from us.
But they had a very it was thesame note every time.
(24:41):
Dear Alex, it's the exact samenote every time.
And they were sending us photosor screenshots off Instagram of
people so excited about this.
They posted to Instagram.
I said, well, or Twitter orwhatever.
And I said, well, why don't youmix it up?
It doesn't cost you anything tochange the language, so
everybody doesn't get the exactsame note.
And I just thought that createdkind of an insincerity.
(25:03):
They should have spent a littlebit of time just shuffling the
messages for a mattress company,an online mattress company.
They were using us for a longtime and then they stopped and
we said, well, why are youstopping?
They're including thesehandwritten notes in the boxes
of the mattresses.
And they said oh well, we didthat when we were a small
company and we're trying tocreate a personal relationship.
Now we're a big company and wedon't need to do that, and we're
(25:25):
just like oh, and argue withthat that's just how do you
can't argue with.
I don't want to insult myclients, I'll stop there.
So those are kind ofinteresting.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
The variables are very interesting there.
I think that's a very smartpoint, because if you're using
the same motion with the samekind of persona within a company
or within a target audience,chances are that at some point
they'll figure out that, oh,this is the exact same thing.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So we always say mix it up.
And there's ways to mix it upthat are painless on your side.
And, for example, with thismattress company, we included
little doodles, so like oneperson would get a picture of a
moon in the stars, hand-drawn,or somebody else would get
somebody dreaming of their cat,and we had a bunch of them.
(26:18):
So if you were to say,furnishing a new home, every
time you open a box you'd have adifferent surprise and delight
cool.
So there were some cool thingsthere too.
Some other bad ideas, I think,are making your message too long
oh you know, instead of we tryto limit you to 500 characters.
There's a couple reasons.
Number one our robots.
Actually, the longer the note,the longer it takes to write,
(26:41):
therefore the more expensive.
But we're also living in aTwitter generation where
everybody has 160 characters ofattention span.
So if you're going 500, you'rekind of reaching the asymptotic
limit of what people are willingto read.
People that do full lettersversus cards.
I think, A it's very expensivebecause we have to charge you
(27:03):
for robot time to do that.
B nobody's going to read it.
Nobody's going to believe that.
You sat down and you wrote, youknow, you pulled out a quill,
tip a feather and startedwriting my dearest Alex.
Nobody's going to believe it.
So keep it short, yeah.
Keep it focused on appreciation, Keep it in a card.
Those are that's kind of whatwe do.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I love it.
My son recently for Christmas.
He is kind of into vintagey,kind of 20s, teens, 20s, 30s
stuff.
He wanted a tap typewriter.
So we got him like arefurbished like vintage 20s,
mid-20s typewriter and the thingis so cool.
(27:48):
It brought back a lot ofmemories because I'm of a
certain age where we had atypewriter in the house and so
it was kind of cool.
But he's been using the snotout of it just typing various
things and it's such a cool,visceral thing that we're not
used to anymore.
It goes back to almost a lostform, that written communication
(28:09):
type.
Situation A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And the most important thing about a
handwritten note ideally anactual handwritten note is the
time and focus you put intowriting it, not the note itself.
And even if people know thatyou used a service like ours to
write a note, they know you atleast took a moment to think of
(28:32):
something different to do.
And while that's not the sameas sitting down and putting pen
to paper yourself, it's secondbest, I'd say.
So it really is somebodyequated and I found it very
interesting.
They said sending somebody ahandwritten note the next best
thing is walking into a meetingwith them and they take their
phone and turn it off.
Because when you send somebodya handwritten, you're basically
(28:58):
saying, okay'm gonna bedistraction free and think just
about you for the next fiveminutes for me to write this, um
.
So there's real value there andpeople really appreciate it,
because before this podcast Ihad to go in and turn off all my
email and teams and phone.
It's hard to find focus thesedays and people appreciate it
when you go out of your way todo that.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, for sure.
One of the things I wasthinking about earlier when we
were talking about integrationand all that kind of fun stuff,
is just like the data element ofthis, because I know in SaaS
software we struggle with cleancontact data and I think that's
a struggle everywhere becauseultimately, at the very least to
(29:38):
do this thing right, you needan address and we need probably
a first and last name, maybeideally and ideally it wouldn't
be like all caps first name andnormal last name, cause that's
like a dead giveaway kind ofsituation.
But you know you also do greatthings with being able to use
(29:59):
tokens within your messages too,so that if you wanted to thank
somebody for their purchase of aspecific thing, you could
include that in a token.
Uh, carefully, but it requiressome.
It requires some data prowessto be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
We're constantly having people say our bulk
upload tool is too difficult.
And I get it.
It's an Excel file.
Not everybody can use Excel.
There's other ways to do it.
There's a lot of ways we allowpeople to do it, but we haven't
found the perfect way WithZapier.
If you're familiar with Zapier,you can go in and do data
fields that way too.
Anybody that knows Zapiershould be able to figure it out.
(30:37):
It's not rocket science.
Another thing, to your point ofgotchas, things not to do,
especially when you're selling aproduct.
If you have an automation, Idon't recommend mentioning the
product name because it's goingto be like hey, Alex, thanks so
much for your purchase of thebifold leather.
(30:57):
Yeah, watch, with coin purseblk005 instead, what you want to
do is you want to go up to thecategory level?
Okay now, hey, thanks so muchfor your purchase of the wallet.
So that's how we've gottenaround that.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
A lot, if you like you can probably create an
alternate field that's specificfor handwritten or something.
Yeah, interesting, but that'sbeen a big thing we've learned.
That's great.
Well, look, I've really enjoyedkind of getting a peek behind
the curtain, so to speak, of thething that I tested.
That worked really well and I'ma huge fan of and we've already
connected Zapier.
We're going to get crazy withit a little bit, but to your
(31:38):
point, not too crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
But where can people kind of find you and engage with
you?
Obviously, handwrittencom, witha Y, it should.
I should mention yeah, pleasevisit handwrittencom
H-A-N-D-W-R-Y-T-T-E-N and ifyou're interested, go to
business and then hit samplesand get a free sample kit.
And I don't say much on socials, but you can connect with me on
LinkedIn.
I'm not going to sit there andhold my chin and wax poetic on
(32:00):
it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, hey, thanks for taking the time to chat with us
.
I'm hoping that the digitalleaders that are listening to
this, or the CS leaders that arelistening to this, check you
out and use it as, like I saidearlier, an additional tool in
your toolkit to be able tocreate those great customer
experiences.
But thanks for the time.
It was awesome chatting withyou.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Thanks, alex, right on.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of the
Digital CX Podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success Definition
Wordmap and get more informationabout the show and some of the
(32:45):
other things that we're doing atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
production company founded byour good mutual friend, Dylan
Young.
Lifetime Value aims to servethe content, video, audio
production needs of the CS andpost-sale community.
They're offering services at asteep discount for a limited
(33:07):
time.
So navigate tolifetimevaluemediacom, go have a
chat with Dylan and make sureyou mention the digital cx
podcast sent you.
I'm alex trukovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
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