Thank You Cards

Submitted by wendii on Mon, 02/13/2012 - 12:34.

general

In a short piece in Bloomberg Businessweek, Douglas Conant, former President and CEO of Campbell Soups gives his thoughts on writing thank you notes. He's a big fan, apparently, having sent 20,000 in his 18 year tenure.

The most interesting part for me, was that he says he kept his notes short - 50 - 70 words. Talk about lowering the barrier. How hard can it be to pick up a box of thank you notes, and writing 50 -70 words each time you see something that it's worth saying thank you for?

The other way to lower the barrier and say thank you more often, is to say thank you for smaller things. Really - I have a reminder each week which says 'send thank you notes'. Sometimes, I have to work really hard thinking about who I want to thank. I've sent thank you cards to a person who made my world better by being cheerful every time I saw her. She pinned it up in the communal office where she worked, and EVERYONE knew about it. It wasn't trivial to her. So don't worry, just say thank you.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/how-to-write-a-thankyou-note-092220...

Submitted by gpsmith on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 10:38.

I should do this more

Following a cast where Mark talks about this I bought some pretty cheaply custom printed from Vista Print in the UK; I'm ashamed to say since having them I've only used them a couple of times. I like the idea of a weekly reminder to take stock and do this.

Glenn
High D,I

Submitted by miketickle on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 18:56.

Must try harder

I printed my own post card sized thank you cards: one one side is a photo I took and the other is a place to write the note. That said in work I have nave probably only sent 6 or 6 in the last 12 months.

I'm using the poker chip technique to improve my frequency of feedback (and surprise - it works) so I might adopt a weekly reminder (ctrl-shift-k?) to prompt me to send more.

Mike

High D

Submitted by skinny0ne on Wed, 02/22/2012 - 03:00.

terrible at it!

I bought 2 boxes of thank you cards about, oh, 3 years ago. Wrote only 2! To top it off our company created the electronic thank you card that you can email. They are terrible. Predefined categories and extremely limited characters for a personal message (<30). But the benefit of them is that it they automatically get recorded in your personal record which could be used later during promotions, reviews, etc. I hate them. But one guy was so impressed that he asked, "Is this an OFFICIAL thank you?" "Yes it is. Thanks for your work with the customer." So I guess they count as well even if they aren't as nice as a handwritten one.

Tom

Home

FAQ