Client and business letters
Client thank-you note examples
A client thank-you note has one job: to be read as sincere by somebody who receives a great deal of marketing. Everything that makes it look like marketing works against it. No logo block, no offer, no request for a review in the same breath, and one specific detail that proves it was written about them.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
After a first project or order
[FIRST NAME], thank you for trusting us with [PROJECT]. It is not a small thing to hand a new supplier something that matters, and we did not take it lightly. Looking forward to the next one.
After a referral
The strongest note on this list. Somebody has put their own name on the line for you.
[FIRST NAME], [REFERRED NAME] got in touch this week and said you had suggested they call. Thank you. Recommending someone puts your own reputation in it, and I wanted you to know it was noticed.
On a client anniversary
[FIRST NAME], it is [NUMBER] years this month since [BUSINESS NAME] first came to us. Thank you for staying. We have grown up a fair bit in that time and a good deal of that is down to clients who stuck with us while we did.
At the end of a long or difficult job
[FIRST NAME], [PROJECT] was harder than either of us expected and you were straightforward about it the whole way through. That made the difference. Thank you.
By tone, where the occasion is just the end of a year
Warm: [FIRST NAME], thank you for a genuinely good year of work together. Here is to the next one.
Professional: [FIRST NAME], thank you for your business this year. It has been a pleasure working with [BUSINESS NAME] and we are glad to have been useful.
Premium, few words: [FIRST NAME] - with thanks for [YEAR]. [SIGNATORY]
Personal, where you know them well: [FIRST NAME], thanks for the year, and for talking me out of [THING] back in March. You were right.
Getting it right
- What to mention. One specific thing. The project, the order, the referral, the year, the difficult decision they made. Specificity is the entire difference between a note that lands and a note that reads as a merge, and it is usually a single clause.
- What to leave out. "We value your business", which is what a bank says. Anything that asks for something. A discount code, which converts a thank-you into a promotion and is read as one.
- How long. 25 to 60 words. Three sentences is a good note. Six is a letter, and a letter reads as an effort to fill the card.
- How personal. Match how you actually speak to them. A note warmer than the working relationship is uncomfortable to receive.
- When not to send one. Immediately after a complaint, alongside an invoice, or to somebody you are about to ask for something. Wait until the note can be the only thing in the envelope.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [FIRST NAME], [BUSINESS NAME], [PROJECT], [NUMBER], [REFERRED NAME].
The field that ruins a thank-you note is the one that is nearly right. "Thank you for your order of Product" is worse than no merge at all. And one merge field in a short note reads as personal where three read as a database, so spend the specificity on the clause rather than on the fields.
Before any run, read the piece with the longest value in your data, the shortest, and the empty one. If all three read as English the merge is sound. Personalising direct mail at scale covers the rest.
Sending these at volume
Twenty notes is an afternoon somebody can find. Four hundred at the end of the financial year is the point at which the plan quietly becomes a printed card, and a printed card in a script font is read as advertising by everyone who receives one.
Autopen Australia writes each piece individually with a real ballpoint, personalises every piece from your list, written into the sentence rather than dropped into a gap, hand-addresses the envelopes and varies the letterforms piece to piece the way handwriting does.
Have a client list and no evenings left? Ask for a sample
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