One of my most popular articles is The Form Letter to End All Form Letters.
On LinkedIn, I often send it to people who have sent me a grossly mistargeted poorly written form letter that helps me realize how low the bar would be for an AI system to be doing that work.
Today I got a response that surprised me:
👍
Thank you
This “thank you,” really took me aback. I can’t judge its motivation. Did they miss the message entirely? Did they enjoy my article? Do they really hate their job reading responses almost as much as many cold callers hate theirs and this was the best source of amusement for the day? Does their job require them to send a response and they had nothing else to say?
It is a perfectly reasonable response in the same way that “We’re sorry,” would have been a perfectly reasonable response. Still, it threw me for a loop.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
What I can’t help thinking is that if their lengthy form letter could generate one part in ten the curiosity that these 10 characters did, I bet their conversion rate would go through the roof.
