Generate Letters

Your Generate Letters tab displays the list of properties that meet the criteria of the triggers you have turned on. Properties will remain under your triggers for 1 week, or until generated (with the exception of the reduction trigger - properties will remain under this trigger for 14 days). 

We recommend generating letters as often as possible, so that you’re not missing out on the opportunity to communicate with landlords. If you’re short on time, you can have Spectre send out these letters for you automatically - learn more about Spectre Automation here. 

If there are any properties that you don’t want to send to, you can deselect these either for that particular trigger (in which case the property will show as available to send to the next time it meets the criteria for another trigger in your account), or mark as never send. Any properties deselected for a particular trigger will be highlighted yellow and any that have been marked as never send will be highlighted red. 

If you’d like to see more information about a property, you can select the property to view the property page. 

If you know the landlord details, you can add these to the property by clicking on Edit/add details - if unknown you would also have the option to purchase the title deed.

If Spectre identifies an issue with your letter content you will see a warning message that letters using that template will not be generated. Common errors include:

“The letter content for this trigger is currently empty”

• This can be fixed by going to Settings >> Letter Triggers & Templates >> Add Content for the trigger in question.

“The letter template is too long to fit a single sheet of A4 paper”

• Go to Settings >> Letter Triggers & Templates to preview the letter in question. It may be obvious that the issue can be solved by doing the following:
• From Settings >> PDF Settings you can change your letter formatting, making amendments to your letter margins and font size to bring the letter onto a single page 
• From Settings >> Letter Formatting you can reduce the gaps between the address, your letter content, and any disclaimer you may have included beneath this
• From Settings >> Greetings & Sign-offs you can reduce the number of lines taken up by your signature, and clear any blank space that may be beneath this
• If your letter still runs over a single page after trying these steps, you will need to reduce your content. To do this go to Settings >> Letter Triggers & Templates >> Edit for the letter in question.

“The letter content uses the following merge fields that have not been configured”

• You can configure your branch information merge fields by going to Settings >> Merge fields. If you need to change the merge fields being used on your letter, you can do this by going to Settings >> Letter Triggers & Templates >> Edit

Sometimes a property might meet the criteria for multiple triggers - e.g. if it has been reduced on the same week as a time triggered letter, or if it is listed with multiple agents. Any duplicates will be removed from your selected properties by default and will be shown at the bottom of the page, for you to review whether you’d like to include them. 

Once you’re happy with your property selection, hit Generate at the bottom of the page to send or download your letters. If you choose Send with Spectre credits, these will be posted out via our printers. If you select Download, these letters will be available for you to print and distribute yourself. 

You can view, recall and delete generated batches from your Sent Letters tab. If you delete a letter batch, the properties within that batch will reappear under the relevant triggers on your Generate Letters page.