If you’ve spent any time online looking for letter writing help you have no doubt come across software programs that “automatically generate” various types of letters.

There are two typical ways in which these software letter generators work:

The most basic type of letter generator presents you with a list of letters that you can choose from. Once you choose the item that comes closest to your need, you are then presented with a short unformatted “bare-bones” generic letter template with a bunch of blank fields that you must fill in such as: [name], [date], [company], etc. After you’ve filled in the blanks you’re supposed to cut and paste that resulting text into your word processing program as your final letter.

The second letter generator model is a bit more sophisticated but still has some problems. These software programs present you with a series of “generic phrases” for each type of letter. You then select and paste the most appropriate phrase choices into your unformatted draft letter template. What you typically end up with is a bunch of unrelated generic phrases loosely strung together. The result is an unformatted rough draft that will definitely require a serious editing job before you can use it.

All I can say about these products is BUYER BEWARE! Although it might have seemed like a good idea at the time, these “software letter generators” are only slightly better than the typical fill-in-the-bank templates.

Here are the problems with the typical automatic letter-generator software:

• For each letter, you get to choose from a half-dozen or so, completely out of context, independent/unconnected pre-written, one-liner phrases that you have to plug into your letter as separate sentences.

• The final software-generated-letter is a disjointed collection of weakly-linked sentences and/or paragraphs that actually needs a professional editing job just to make it presentable before sending it out.

• You do not get “in-context” mental stimulation and visual cues to help you visualize the final finished product, as you do with a real-life template.

• The final letters come entirely unformatted so that you then have to completely set-up and format the letter from scratch before it can be sent.

• Software letter generators provide little or no guidance in the way of tips, pointers and information on the best ways to approach writing the different types of letters. (Trust me, not all letters are equal! There are some specific things you need to know about writing many of the more complex letters).

How do I know this?

I’ve done my research and purchased and tested the most highly advertised software letter generators on the market. In fact, actually using these products and seeing the resulting “letters” was a major incentive for me to continue developing the downloadable fully-formatted “real-life templates” that go into all of my writing kits.

To see an actual comparison of real-life templates with templates generated by two of the top automatic letter generators, check out the following link:

http://www.instantletterwritingkit.com/comparetemps.html

As I said, software letter generators might seem like a good idea in theory, but in my opinion they just don’t do the job of a real-life template.

Hey, maybe I’m missing something here! Who knows?

I’d love to hear what you have to say about automatic letter generators versus real-life templates. And, don’t be afraid to disagree – everyone is entitled to their own opinion on a subject. Just click on the “Comments” link to the right of my name and let me know what you think. Thanks!

5 Responses to “BEWARE of Automatic Letter Generators”

1. Ms. Crutcher Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 4:38 pm

   My company is looking for software that will automatically send out collection letters to our customers. I found your website by accident, looking for this kind of software. Do you have any suggestions? The software would need to be automatic as we have over 1000 customers.

   Thanks,
   Ms. Crutcher

2. Dax Cheng Says:
   September 23rd, 2005 at 7:19 am

   Dear Shaun,

   I own http://www.writing-business-letters.com/ and in that site, I recommend a software that does this.

   Don’t get me wrong; I agree with you that MOST of these software are just useless. But there are good ones out there.

   Regards
   Dax Cheng

3. Shaun Fawcett Says:
   September 23rd, 2005 at 9:32 am

   Hi Dax,

   Thanks for you comment.

   Yes, I agree that some of the automatic letter generators ar much better than others. Nevertheless, I have never seen one yet that won’t require a serious edit and formatting job before the letter can go out (unless it’s a simple one or two-liner). I have purchased and tested two of the main products that you sell on your site, and the templates just don’t measure up to real-life templates. That’s because they are generic, one-size-fits-all, and do not provide a real-life contextual reference.

   But, I do agree that using templates (even automatically-generated templates) is much better than starting from a blank page or screen!

   Thanks again for your feedback …. Shaun

4. Jan Says:
   October 28th, 2005 at 4:46 pm

   Shaun, thank you very much for all the important mail you send to me. I’m a newbee in internet business and try to understand how everything is working. For me, I think, it’s not yet time to write important business letters, because of my understanding and writing in the English lunguage is’t on very high level, I’m Dutch. But who knows.. If I start with writing I now know were I can find the information. Shaun, thanks you again, I appreciate it very well, Jan.

5. Shaun Fawcett Says:
   October 28th, 2005 at 9:17 pm

   Thanks Jan. You’re right to be focusing on your writing if you’re getting involved in Internet business. As I state in my last post (early September), writing for the Net is probably the single most important skill required to develop a successful Web presence.