Successful entrepreneurs are finding that sending ‘old fashioned’ personal thank you notes are winning them huge points with their staff, customers, and suppliers in an environment cluttered with ‘automated’ digital communication.
Billionaire Tilman Fertitta, the guy who founded the Landry’s restaurant empire and who owns Houston Rockets, says he spends $150,000 each year on stationary to thank his customers. Landry’s owns everything from Morton’s to the Rainforest Café to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, so that’s a lot of people to thank during the course of the year.
But to Fertitta, his personal thank-you protocol resonates, “Customers love to know they’re appreciated. So, when you can drop them a little unique note, it really lets them know how you feel.”
Portland Oregon real estate developer Paula Madden says, “Good manners and saying ‘thank you’ are the basis of civilization. A text message just doesn’t cut it because conveying emotion in digital formats is a lost cause”.
According to a survey by TopResume, two-thirds of employers say receiving a thank-you note from a job applicant following an interview impacted their hiring decision.
John Naisbitt, author of the best-selling businesses book, Megatrends says, “The more high-technology around us, the more the need for human touch.”