I wanted to show you two examples of contact with a customer. In my opinion, one is good, and one is bad. You may decide for yourself.
The Bad
My wife received this from her optometrist:
Besides a little redaction of the doctor’s details, this is untouched.
I see two problems here:
1. My wife’s name was not specified, only ‘Patient.’
2. The doctor’s name is listed in a signature block, but not it was not signed by the doctor.
This leads me to question if my wife’s doctor even knows who she is and why he even bothered sending a letter with his name on it..
The Good (#1)
Here are a series of text messages from my dentist, reminding me of upcoming appointments:
They know my cell number because I gave it to them and they use it, with my permission, to alert me to upcoming events, and to send me birthday wishes. 
The Good (#2):
Here is another example that I think is excellent and actually pretty funny:
Here we have a clearly identified customer, Millie, and a set of next action steps that Millie needs to take.
Is also happens that this postcard is from our Veterinarian and Millie is one of our cats.
What I like most about this, even if you find it a bit silly, is that the Vet knows exactly who the customer is: Millie the Kat. It just happens that her humans are the people who have to make this happen, so we’re included as well.
And your point would be?
Assuming you know your customer’s name, use it. There are a variety of ways that you can utilize personal information in correspondence:
- Email templates
- Mail Merge templates
- Third-party marketing services like Core Motives, Click Dimensions, and MailChimp, etc.
