Personalisation is great - just don't get it wrong (like I did)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Confession time.
I spent ages personalising letters for some of our top 100 higher value donors and sent them off with high hopes of a great response.
Those hopes turned to despair when the first response I got back pointed out that I'd got the date of their last gift wrong. Unsurprisingly the air turned blue and I was livid with myself, as it was 100% my fault and I'd made a typo.
What's worse than not personalising a letter?
Getting the personalisation wrong and if I was the donor then I would be majorly peeved.
Unfortunately I couldn't find the donor's phone number, so instead I sent a genuine, heartfelt apology for my mistake, asking them to blame me and not the charity for the error. I haven't heard anything back yet, but hope this quick response and acknowledgement will stop the donor from never giving to us again.
I've been through the rest of the letters and fortunately it was the only mistake (though one is too many) and I've learnt a valuable lesson in the meantime...