Don Lafferty

jackassletters.com Reminds Us to LISTEN, Old School

by Don Lafferty on April 1, 2009

I’m a big fan of writing letters. I’ll still fire off an email if I want to connect with a company or a person through their website or blog, but in my book, nothing beats an old fashioned piece of paper with a real signature for maximum impact.

When Ed Rendell was running for Mayor of Philadelphia, he once told me that every letter his office received on a given subject represented the opinion of 9,999 people who, for one reason or another, didn’t or couldn’t write. That rule of thumb always stuck with me, and given my propensity to burn inordinate amounts of time chasing after one windmill or another, it forged in me a moral responsibility to doggedly represent my 10,000.

So this morning when I saw that @jackassletters.com was my newest follow on Twitter, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this jackass, Christopher L. Jorgensen, is my letter-writing brother-from-another-mother.

His site, dedicated to the declining art of letter writing, is a testament to the raw power of the pen. The real pen, that is. From SWAG to satisfaction to an eight by ten glossy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jorgensen reminds us how it’s done, providing a blow-by-blow account of every letter he writes, including running commentary, responses, and a recap of each letter’s results.

In the section titled “Lessons Learned: the obscure and the obvious” he offers common-sense advice for companies who want to mine the gold represented by that one person in ten-thousand who was bold enough, pissed off enough or bored enough to thread a sheet of crisp, white bond into their Smith Corona, and peck out their heart and soul.

When’s the last time you were compelled to write a real letter? Was it effective?

Tagged as: archbishop of canterbury, cheney, customer service, ed rendell, jackassletters.com, letter, listen, philadelphia, phillies

  • http://www.jackassletters.com Christopher L. Jorgensen

    Thanks for doing this. I’m glad you dug the site.

    Sometimes I have a high-minded goal when writing a letter, but more often they are motivated by actually knowing a little something about the person or company. Sometimes people accuse me of trying to make people or companies look stupid. I maintain only the companies can do that.

    Take a look at the Church of LDS letter or the one from Okoboji Grill and see that they held their own. Now fire up the Wal-Mart letters. They didn’t respond to either the stupid letter I sent their corporate office or the real complain letter I sent to the store level.

    A real letter as a response also makes me react to a company in a way email just wouldn’t. So it goes both ways. I’m a little less annoyed by some companies after getting a paper response.

    I get about a third response rate in case you were wondering, and ignoring me does influence my future shopping decisions. I wrote some companies just to tell them I enjoyed their stores. No response. So we go less often.

    Companies could take a lesson from the Archbishop or the Queen. My favorite letter is held by Avery’s Soda.

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