Customer notes
Thank-you notes after a car purchase
A car is the second largest purchase most people make and almost nobody writes to them about it afterwards. The handover note is unusual enough to be kept, and the customer is about to spend a fortnight telling everyone they know what they bought and where from.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
After handover
[FIRST NAME],
Congratulations on the [MODEL]. It suited what you described better than the [ALTERNATIVE] would have, and I think you will be pleased with that call in about six months.
Anything at all in the first few weeks, ring me directly rather than the switchboard: [MOBILE].
[SALESPERSON NAME]
Where the customer waited on a build or an import
[FIRST NAME],
Finally. Thank you for waiting [NUMBER] months for the [MODEL] without once making it my problem.
I hope the first drive made up for it. My mobile is [MOBILE] if anything needs sorting.
[SALESPERSON NAME]
To a repeat customer
[FIRST NAME],
That is [NUMBER] cars now. Thank you for coming back, and for making it easy every time.
Enjoy the [MODEL].
[SALESPERSON NAME], [MOBILE]
Where the customer traded something in they were attached to
More common than dealerships allow for, and the detail a customer remembers being acknowledged.
[FIRST NAME],
Enjoy the [MODEL]. And for what it is worth, the [TRADE IN] went to someone who wanted exactly that car, which I thought you would rather know.
[SALESPERSON NAME], [MOBILE]
The three-month note
Separate from the handover card and worth more, because by then the honeymoon is over and nobody else has written.
[FIRST NAME],
Three months in. Anything about the [MODEL] that is not what you expected, I would genuinely like to know - it is the only way I get better at matching people to cars.
No service pitch attached to this.
[SALESPERSON NAME], [MOBILE]
Getting it right
- What to mention. The car, by model rather than by stock number. The salesperson’s own name and mobile. One practical thing about the first weeks of ownership.
- What to leave out. A service booking reminder, which belongs in a separate letter three months later. A review link. The dealership’s group branding, which undoes the personal effect entirely.
- How long. 40 to 80 words.
- How personal. From the individual who sold it, not from the dealership. It should read as if they wrote it at their desk, because they should have.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [FIRST NAME], [MODEL], [SALESPERSON NAME], [MOBILE], [NUMBER].
Dealer management systems store the model as a variant code with trim and colour attached. Merging it raw produces "congratulations on the HATCH 1.8 MY24 PRL WHT", which is the exact opposite of a personal note. Map it to the name the customer uses.
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
A dealership delivering sixty cars a month has sixty of these, split across a sales team who are all mid-deal with somebody else.
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 and hand-addresses the envelopes.
Want one going out on every delivery? How dealership runs work
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Writing more of these than you have evenings
Tell us roughly how many and what they say. We will come back with an exact price and a production window.