Dealership service departments are always looking for ways to strengthen customer bonds. Personalized communications is one way they do that.
But delivering such messages digitally has become ubiquitous. Handwrytten offers a unique way for service departments to stand out by sending a seemingly handwritten note to customers.
"The Handwrytten note is nothing more than an incredible sales and customer retention best practice," said Bill Reidy, the company's senior vice president for automotive.
Based in Phoenix, Handwrytten offers 35 writing styles and regularly adds more, Reidy said. It produces its own cardstock. Robots do the actual writing — 200 of them work 16 hours a day in an 18,000-square-foot warehouse. One technician oversees 20 robots. Handwrytten engineers write the firm's software and computer code.
And while making a customer believe a real person crafted the personal note is the goal, a person doesn't have to come up with the exact language anymore. Handwrytten offers AI assistance to help compose the notes.
Clients also can have their own handwriting duplicated. To create a card, a client types a message using the Handwrytten app. The message is sent to a robot that "writes" the card and addresses an envelope using an ink pen.
"It's your message [but] we write it for you," Reidy said.
After the card and envelope are completed, a real person makes sure the card and envelope match, stuffs the envelope and affixes a stamp. The card is then mailed.
A dealership can send out one card or many. For bulk mailings, Handwrytten integrates with a dealership management system. The cost ranges from $3 to $3.50 per card depending on volume.
"Our customer only needs to choose the card and message and the system does the rest," Reidy said.
Mercedes-Benz of Easton in Columbus, Ohio, began sending Handwrytten's cards from its service department a few months ago. Previously, it had been using Handwrytten to send birthday cards and notes to sales associates for a year and a half. Its service lane cards focus on customer loyalty and creating an emotional connection with the dealership, said General Manager Daniel Govaer.
After a customer visits the dealership service department, he or she receives a Handwrytten card from the dealership's client services coordinator thanking them for their business. The message says providing an excellent client experience is Mercedes-Benz of Easton's goal. If the dealership did not exceed the client's expectations, the note says, it would like to discuss that with the customer. It sends a card to anyone with a repair order that closes and has been sending up to 500 cards a month, Govaer said.
The client services coordinator receives about four calls a month in response to the cards, Govaer said. Some callers have said the service experience was great; others have been impressed by the card. A few let the dealership know how it could do better, he said.
Govaer said the Handwrytten cards are one of the more progressive things the dealership does.
"When you see an actual handwritten envelope, it really cuts through the clutter," Govaer said. "To be genuine, it is OK to sometimes be not all electronic. It brings back a bit of the human element" to customer service.
Personalization establishes the "thread of the relationship between the customer and the dealership over time," said Chris Sutton, vice president of automotive retail at J.D. Power. The service adviser role accounts for 19 percent of a dealership's overall score in J.D. Power's annual Customer Satisfaction Index.
"There is a lot of opportunity for dealerships to show appreciation for a customer's business in this area," Sutton said.
One of the survey metrics is feeling the dealership showed appreciation for one's business.
Dealers can use personalized communications such as the Handwrytten cards to build their own brand, said Skyler Chadwick, director of product consulting for Cox Automotive. While he saw digital communication as playing an important role given the Cox stable of digital tools, Chadwick appeciated the value in sending personalized Handwrytten notes as well.
"Anytime you can make a customer feel important it is going to resonate with the customer the next time they need to buy a new car or need service," he said.
XYZ Motors, an independent dealership in Grand Rapids, Mich., hopes receiving a Handwrytten note will make a customer think of XYZ when they want to buy another used vehicle. It started sending cards to customers in May 2022. After limited success with promotional offers such as an Amazon gift card in return for a referral, XYZ decided to stick with a simple thank you, said business development executive Goran Purkovic.
XYZ tried getting salespeople to actually write cards but "that failed miserably from day one," he said.
Now it sends around 110 Handwrytten cards a month and hears back from a customer about once a month based on the card. XYZ has stuck with Handwrytten even though it can't quantify an exact return on the investment, said Purkovic.
"That wasn't our whole purpose," he said. "It is part of our customer service and we are OK with that."
Dealerships are still a very small part of Handwrytten's overall business, representing about 3 percent of all cards sent, Reidy said. He aims to have up to 400 dealership clients by year's end.
The Handwrytten cards can be used for many purposes, including prospecting, said Reidy. Some dealer clients sent a trade-in offer to all of their 2018 sales, for example, and had an up to 1.5 percent return rate, said Reidy.
He sees unlimited potential for Handwrytten's cards. "The coolest thing for dealers is once they can envision what they want to do," he said, "we can do it."
Send us a letter
Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
