The company my wife works for just gave away a house. Well, OK not the whole house, just the shell of a house. It was part of a home show. In order to give away the house they had to get entry forms from people. Hundreds of people. All those entry forms have to then be translated from paper form to digital form. This means hours of work for all the employee's plus me (my wife's boss graciously allowed me to come work for the company for a week). Before I go on let me say that not all people are bad at filling out entry forms. However, there are lots of people who are.
During my time of data entry I entered nearly 1000 forms into the computer. Here are some basic rules that everyone should adhere to when filling out contest entry forms. These rules should apply to every contest in every situation unless the entry is digital to begin with, they are also in no particular order.
Rule #1: PLEASE PRINT! I don't care if there is no sign saying please print. I don't care if you ALWAYS write in cursive and it's the most beautiful cursive on the planet to you. I don't care if you think it's legible. It isn't. Printing is easier to read almost 100% of the time. The only time you should not print is if the form asks for your signature.
Rule #2: Please fill out the form completely. When the form asks for your mailing address, do not assume that people will know that 23rd in Portland is an Avenue and not a street. INCLUDE YOUR ZIP CODE! Even in the days of Google Maps and USPS.com it's a waste of time for the entry person to have to go look it up because you're too lazy to add a little tiny 5 digit number. For that matter when it asks for your mailing address don't just give us a city and state, we want your mailing address for a reason and it's not to spam you with mail or send you all kinds of crazy offers, who can afford to do that. That's what email is for (I'm only kidding).
Rule #3: When filling out your email, print it. This probably goes back to rule number 1 but I think it bears repeating. I lost count of the number of people who used cursive in their email addresses. If I can't read your writing I can't give the company the right address. That means they waste hours clearing out their database after they send out the email thanking you for your interest in the company and contest and it bounces back.
Rule #4: When filling out your email include the stuff the comes after the dot. For example, sharponair@yahoo is not a valid email. There are millions of email systems out there. We don't and can't know whether your particular email ends in .com, .net, .us, .gov, .biz, well you get the idea.
Rule #5: Read the contest rules. This may seem obvious but apparently it's not. The contest I did entry for allowed one entry per person. We had one entrant who filled out 52 forms. First of all that's a waste of your time. Second of all it's a waste of ours when we have to sort out your name because it's already been entered 20 times. Third you're seen as an idiot because you thought you would get away with breaking the rules.
Rule #6: Sign the form. When there is a legal disclaimer on the form that asks you to affirm, with your signature, that you have read the rules of the contest, sign it. If you don't your entry won't count, but we'll still enter your information into the computer.
Rule #7: When filling out your name please include your name, not your initials, unless you use your initials as your name. Saying your name is J Somebody, when it's really Jeff Somebody is just plain annoying, especially when you sign the form and we can see that you sign the form using your real name.
Rule #8: When the contest says one entry per person don't try to fill the form out for someone else. This rule applies mostly to husbands and wives who fill out forms for each other. The contest is one per person, and it requires an authenticating signature. One entrant filled out two forms one for herself and one for her husband. Hers is legitimate, it has her signature and her name. His would not be legitimate especially because when she filled out his form she initially signed her name, then scratched it out and "signed" his. One entry per person means that if the other person isn't there they can't enter and you can't enter for them.
Rule #9 When asked for you age include it. "Old enough", 21+, 55+, "older than you", 18+, leaving the line blank, putting "0", and "very old" do not count as ages. If you read the rules you know that you have to be a certain age to win. Include it. We don't really care how old you are vs. how old you feel, it's a legal matter. Don't lie about your age either, if you're 55 and you put 18+ that's just wrong and in most cases would probably get rejected. It's a demographic thing too. We just want to know how old people are who filled out the forms and how many fit into target demographics for the company. We're not going to try to embarrass you, if you don't want to reveal your age don't enter the contest. Believe me, this company was generous in it's policies. As long as you said 18+ we let it slide. I've done other data entry stuff where you wouldn't have been so luck.
Rule #10: If you're underage don't fill out the form. We had at least one 4 year old fill out the form. Parents stop your little ones from doing this. It wastes time and paper.
Rule #11: Filling the form out for your dog or as a joke is not funny. It wastes more time and just makes those of us having to enter the data angry.
Rule #12: Don't include comments in the form. We know that the form may not include everything in your specific situation. We don't need to know that. We also don't need to know how much you want to win. Everyone wants to win, please don't tell us. Also we're glad you own one of the homes we built but we really don't need you to tell us on the form.
Rule #13 PLEASE PRINT! I know I said this already. It's called stressing the point.
If you follow all of these rules all of the time I guarantee you will make data entry people very, very happy because they will be able to enter your information quickly and move on to the thousands of other forms they have to enter. They might even smile when they get yours because it is so easy to enter into the computer. The rules aren't hard, they just need to be followed.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and for following the rules in the future. If you have questions or comments, my contact info is on the right.
