What’s in a name? When it comes to the question of compliment slips – the insert bearing a company’s name, which is sent out with products or information – there’s more to the subject than might at first be apparent.
The eagle-eyed may have spotted a mistake in that last sentence. “Aha,” says the stickler for correct grammar and spelling, “surely that should be complement slip — with an ‘e’ — offering the ‘compliments’ of the company?”.
And they’d be correct. However, put the traditional spelling into a search engine and it will come back with multiple options — but all offering compliment slips — with an ‘i’. Even Debrett’s, that arbiter of correct forms of address, has adopted the modern spelling.
Language evolves — and, if people use or spell a word in a certain way, then it will gain acceptance. Remember when editors at the Oxford English Dictionary ‘literally’ changed the definition of that word a few years ago?
So perhaps it’s fitting that the definition of the traditional compliment slip is evolving, too.
Baddeley Brothers are increasingly seeing clients choose to send a correspondence card stamped with their logo, when they post out goods or information — as a less formal, more personal way of communicating with their customers.
Socially, correspondence cards are typically used to thank someone for dinner. But in a business environment, in a less formal world where letterheads are not so common, using a correspondence card to thank a customer for their business is an alternative way to maintaining a personal touch.
It’s an approach that can work particularly well when sent out with a product, such as a book, or luxury leather goods.
Shops can also keep a stock of notecards by the counter, on which to jot down the details of an item a customer is considering buying, but needs time to mull over.
At Baddeley Brothers, a correspondence card, or notecard, can be produced in any size from a small business card with a simple message, such as “thank you” on it, all the way up to A6 and 5×7”
A range of creative techniques, such as die-stamping and blind embossing, can be employed to print the company’s details and logo. And to further personalise the card, Baddeley Brothers can produce envelopes as well..
Mark Twain famously said he could live for two months on a good compliment. Perhaps it’s time to see what a fresh approach to the compliment slip could do for your business.
