Have you ever faced writing business emails to anyone? We did!
Nowadays, business correspondence is significant but not so easy. Mistakes can have serious consequences – from misunderstanding to ruining the business. That's why Anna, the recruiter of the Training Center, decided to share some tips on avoiding typical mistakes.
📌One email — one issue to discuss
Responding to letters that contain several questions on different tasks is inconvenient. Seeing a separate correspondence thread with a clearly defined topic for each issue is much more convenient. If you need to combine questions into a group, this can be done in the letter's subject.
📌Subject
Writing letters without a subject looks disrespectful. Such a letter cannot be identified in the stream of all received emails. An ideally designated subject of the letter is when, after six months, any recipient in the correspondence will be able to find it easily.
📌Go straight to the main point
The letter's purpose should be stated immediately and as specifically as possible unless the topic is complex and self-explanatory. If it's complicated, it's better to arrange a meeting or a call in a letter and fix its main theses in subsequent correspondence after such a conversation.
📌Call to action
Response to the request - what we want to receive from the letter - it is better to put the request in a separate paragraph and formulate it as precisely as possible.
📌Check it — then recheck it
Before sending a message, make sure that everything is correct. Proofread the spelling of names, check dates, times, and punctuation, and test every hyperlink to be sure it is live and accurate. Also, read your paragraphs backwards: read the sentence at the end of the section first, then the one above, and so on. This approach allows you to disassociate what you intended to write from what is there.
And here some valuable books on this topic
☁️ The book «Write and keep it brief» by M. Ilyakhov illustrates how to write letters that will be answered on real examples. Following the book's guidelines, you will learn how to express your thoughts briefly, clearly, and convincingly.
☁️ The work «The new rules for business correspondence» by M. Ilyakhov and L. Sarycheva narrates the methodology for compiling commercial proposals, cover letters, and responses to clients and partners politely and with the right tone. The publication should become your reference book if you are engaged in business correspondence.
☁️ The brief guide «Get text right» by M. Illyakhov will help you to make written communication with partners and clients as efficient and safe as possible. You will learn how to avoid annoying correspondence mistakes, set tasks, criticize, make claims, report, correctly use visualization for presentations, and make commercial offers.
☁️ «Oxford handbook of commercial correspondence» by A. Ashley is a new glossary of helpful business and commercial vocabulary to help you consolidate and build your knowledge.
☁️ «Email and commercial correspondence: a guide to professional English» by A. Wallwork for those who write emails and letters as a part of their work and are non-native speakers of English.
By applying the suggested guidelines, you will stand a much greater chance of getting the desired reply to your emails in the shortest time possible.
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