Handwrytten LLC, a service company founded in February 2014, adds a personal touch to business communications with a little help from robots, says David Wachs, founder and president.  

Business buyers use Handwrytten to send cards with personalized messages, some enclosed with gift cards, to employees, customers and casual acquaintances. Robotic handwriting machines write the message in “realistic” handwriting on a card selected by a client, then address a postage-stamped envelope, insert an optional gift card and place it in a mail bin. The privately held company declines to comment on sales but says business-to-business e-commerce revenue has been growing 27% month over month during the past three months. 

Handwrytten plans to build on this growth in the coming months by completing its software integration with Salesforce.com, a provider of customer relationship management and other business software applications hosted on the Internet. Companies that use Salesforce.com for customer relationship management technology will be able to import their customer address book into Handwrytten’s mobile application or website, and more easily place bulk orders for sending personalized cards to customers, Wachs says.

“Within Salesforce you’ll be able to select a contact, card, type a message, click a gift card option and then all of that information will be sent to Handwrytten and stored in your Salesforce activity feed,” he says.

In-house developers at Handwrytten recently built an option that allows business buyers to upload onto Handwrytten.com an Excel spreadsheet file of the names and addresses of their contacts. Buyers can then sort through those contacts and send groups of them personalized cards through Handwrytten’s e-commerce site.

The Handwrytten mobile app has been downloaded nearly 15,000 times for Apple devices, and 300 times for Android devices, the company says. In August, Handwrytten expanded its offering of $3 cards, which includes the service price as well as tax and postage, to meet demand from business clients. Business buyers prefer these cards because they are most cost effective for sending bulk orders, Wachs says.

Handwrytten declines to name the approximately 100 business customers using the service—“people often don’t want to disclose using this service because they want recipients to think they sent the cards,” Wachs says. But he says buyers are involved in such industries as government, solar panel installation and software. He also says many independent business owners—lawyers, real estate agents or consultants—use the service. XL.net, an information technology consulting and service firm based in Des Plaines, Ill., used Handwrytten to send Christmas cards to about 50 employees last December.

Handwrytten offers holiday cards, thank-you notes, birthday cards, congratulations cards and “just for fun” notes. Sales representatives can choose from three handwriting styles—named Casual David, Messy Michael and Fancy Jenna—as well as import a sample of their own handwriting for robots to replicate.

Business buyers must create an account on the mobile app or e-commerce site and can pay with credit cards.

“We feel it’s important to create as genuine a message as possible,” Wach says. “It’s not about where the user got the card, it’s about the card and message itself. We hope our app will help reignite old-fashioned correspondence and make it simple for people to send formal thank-you and follow-up notes.”

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