Thank you notes can be one of the trickiest things on the planet to come up with. You don’t want to come off too impersonal, but you don’t want to be too personal either. You do want to express your appreciation to the client or vendor that you’ve done business with, however you don’t want that appreciation to overstep or sound stilted. When it comes to making a professional thank you note, here are some tips that will help:
- Don’t get personal with their name. Unless you’ve known them as friends for
years and know they don’t mind, addressing someone as “Dave” or “Jen” as a diminutive of their name may be offensive. - When using stock thank you cards, make sure there’s nothing about them that could be misconstrued as overly political or have religious overtones
- Speaking of religious overtones, unless you know someone’s faith, you run the risk of alienating a lot of clients if you use any religious references in your notes. While expressing faith is one thing, putting it into a thank you note may not be appreciated
- Don’t sound desperate or beg for their business. Stick to the point and thank them for the business they’ve already given you. Some may even see the thank you card as a plea for more business in and of itself
- Keep it simple. A long, drawn out note of any kind, let alone a thank you card is going to be overbearing
- Don’t send a generic message that is obviously sent “to everyone”. Even though you don’t want to be too personal, even a professional thank you note will at least use their name
- Don’t make them cheap looking. Use good paper or card stock and a quality font. When you’re expressing appreciation to a customer or vendor, you want them to respect your company
There are lots of other things to avoid that are quite obvious. Language rules, check your spelling, don’t use slang or other words that may offend the recipient and above all, don’t expect a reply back from them. Customers and vendors do want to know you appreciate doing business with them, and will continue to do so when they need to. Professional thank you notes aren’t hard to do, and definitely show people you do care and appreciate them.
