Useful phrases for business correspondence. Business Email Secrets Hate About The Company Send Me A Copy

What is email? In the modern business world, these are:

Your face. It is with the help of email that you can create a positive image in the eyes of the counterparty or ruin the first impression.
Your work tool. A lot of communication with the outside world happens by email. Therefore, having a good command of this tool, you can greatly make your life easier.
A powerful distraction. The outside world is trying to get you, distract and lead you astray via email.

From this point of view, let's look at working with e-mail. Let's start simple.

Letter design

I use the Mozilla Thunderbird mail client, so I will use it as an example. Let's create a new letter and go from top to bottom in the list of fields.

To whom. Copy. Hidden copy

Someone might not know, but Mozilla's "To" can be changed to "Cc" or "Bcc".

To whom: we write the main addressee or several addressees separated by semicolons.
Copy: we are writing to someone who should read the letter, but from whom we do not expect a response.
Hidden copy: we write to the one who should familiarize himself with the letter, but should remain unknown to the rest of the recipients of the letter. Especially suitable for mass mailing of business letters, such as notifications.

Wrong in mass mailing, specify recipients through the "Cc" or "To" fields. Several times a year, I receive letters in which 50–90 addressees are listed in the “Cc” field. There is a violation of privacy. Not all of your recipients need to know who else you are working with on a similar topic. It's good if these are people you know each other. What if the list includes competing companies that don't know about each other? At the very least, you need to be prepared for unnecessary explanations, at the maximum, for the termination of cooperation with one of them. Do not do like this.

Letter subject

The importance of the subject line is often written (sometimes sensibly) in their corporate blogs by professional mailing services. But there most often we are talking about sales letters, where the subject line solves the problem "email must be opened".

We are discussing daily business correspondence. Here the theme solves the problem "the letter and its author should be easily identified and then found." Moreover, your diligence will return to you in the form of karma of numerous response letters, only with prefixes Re: or Fwd, among which you will have to look for the desired letter on the topic.

Twenty letters is the volume of a one-day correspondence of a middle manager. I do not speak about entrepreneurs and business owners at all, their number of letters sometimes goes off scale for 200 or more per day. Therefore, once again: do not send emails with an empty subject.

So how to formulate your subject line correctly?

Mistake # 1 : only the company name in the subject. For example, "Sky" and that's it. First, for sure you are not one of your company communicating with this counterparty. Secondly, such a topic does not bring any meaning, because the name of your company is already visible from the address. Third, guess what your own mailbox will look like with this approach to correspondence? Something like this.

Is it convenient to search for such topics?

Mistake # 2 : a flashy, selling headline. It's great if you know how to write headlines like this. But is it appropriate to use these skills in business correspondence? Remember the purpose of the subject line of a business letter: not to sell, but to provide identification and search.

Text of the letter

There are many guides for writing lyrics for different occasions. For example, Maxim Ilyakhov, Alexander Amzin and other masters of the word have a lot of useful things. I advise you to read their articles at least to improve general literacy and improve the general style of writing.

In the process of writing a letter, we must consistently make several decisions.

A question of courtesy ... At the beginning of the letter, you can blur in courtesies or even tenderness in the spirit of "My dear Rodya, for more than two months now, I haven't talked to you in writing, from which I myself suffered and did not even sleep another night thinking." It is very polite and very costly, both in terms of time to compose such an introduction, and in the time of the interlocutor to read it. This is a business correspondence, remember? Not an essay of the epistolary genre for the competition and not a letter to Raskolnikov's mother, but business correspondence.

We respect our time and the recipient's!

It makes sense to introduce yourself and remind the circumstances of acquaintance only in the first letter sent after a fleeting meeting at the exhibition. If this is a continuation of cooperation or current correspondence, in the first letter of the day we write: "Hello, Ivan", in the second and subsequent ones: "Ivan, ...".

Appeal ... I was always worried about who to contact in a letter, if there are several recipients. I recently wrote a letter to three girls named Anna. Without any hesitation, I wrote "Hello, Anna" and did not take a steam bath. But this is not always the case.

What if there are three or even seven recipients and they don't share the same name? You can list them by name: "Good afternoon, Rodion, Pulcheria, Avdotya and Pyotr Petrovich." But it is long and takes time. You can write: "Hello, colleagues!"

For myself, I use the rule to refer by name to the one who is in the "To" field. And to those who are in the copy, do not apply at all. This rule also allows you to more accurately determine (one!) The addressee of the letter and the purpose of this letter.

Citation ... Often, correspondence is a chain of letters with questions and answers - in a word, a dialogue. It is considered good form not to delete the history of the correspondence and write your answer at the top of the quoted text, so that, returning to this correspondence in a week, you can easily read the dialogue from top to bottom in descending dates.

For some reason, the default setting in Mozilla is "Place cursor after quoted text". I recommend changing it in the menu "Tools" → "Account settings" → "Composing and addressing". It should be like this.

Purpose of the letter ... Business letters are of two types:

when we simply inform the interlocutor (for example, a report on the work done for a month);
and when we want something from the interlocutor. For example, so that he approves the attached invoice for payment.

As a rule, there are many more prompting letters than reporting ones. If we want to achieve something from the interlocutor, it is very important to say this in a letter in plain text. A call to action should be accompanied by a name call and followed by the last sentence in the letter.

Wrong : "Porfiry Petrovich, I know who killed the old woman."

Right : "Porfiry Petrovich, it was I who hacked the old woman, please, take measures to arrest me, I'm tired of suffering!"

Why should the correspondent think for you what to do with this letter? After all, he can make the wrong decision.

Signature in the text ... She must be. Moreover, all mail clients allow you to configure auto-substitution of a signature, for example, the classic "Sincerely, ...". In Mozilla, this is done under Tools → Account Options.

To write or not to write contacts in the signature is everyone's personal business. But if you are in any way connected with sales - be sure to write. Even if the transaction does not take place based on the results of communication, in the future you will be easily found by contacts from the signature.

Finally, one more feature of the body of the letter for those interlocutors who do not like (cannot, does not want, does not have time) to answer your letters. Specify the default in the text of the letter. For example, "Porfiry Petrovich, if you don't come to arrest me before 12:00 on Friday, then I consider myself amnestied." Of course, the deadline must be real (you shouldn't send the example text on Friday at 11:50). The recipient must be physically able to read and decide on your letter. This "silence" relieves you of responsibility for the non-response of the interlocutor. As always, the use of this feature must be approached wisely. If a person responds to your letters on time and regularly, such an ultimatum can, if not offend him, then strain him a little or lead to a decision not to respond to the letter right now, but make you wait for Friday.

Investments

Letters often come with attachments: resumes, commercial offers, estimates, schedules, scans of documents - a very convenient tool and at the same time a source of popular errors.

Mistake : huge attachment size. Emails with attachments up to 20 MB are often received. As a rule, these are scans of some documents in TIFF format, with a resolution of 600dpi. The correspondent's mail program will almost certainly freeze for a few minutes in vain attempts to download a preview of this attachment. And God forbid the recipient to try to read this letter on a smartphone ...

Personally, I immediately delete such letters. Don't want your letter to end up in the trash before being read? Check the size of the attachment. It is recommended that it be no more than 3 MB.

What if it exceeds?

Try reconfiguring your scanner to a different format and resolution. For example, in PDF and 300dpi, quite readable scans are obtained.
Think of programs like WinRar or 7zip. Some files are perfectly compressed.
What if the attachment is huge and you can't compress it? For example, an almost empty accounting database weighs 900 MB. Cloud storage of information will come to the rescue: Dropbox, Google Drive and the like. Some services, such as Mail.ru, automatically convert huge attachments into links to cloud storage. But I prefer to manage my information stored in the cloud myself, so I don't welcome automation from Mail.ru.

And one more not entirely obvious recommendation about investments - their name ... It must be understandable and acceptable to the recipient. Once we in the company were preparing a commercial offer addressed to ... let it be Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. I received a letter from the manager with a project proposal for approval, and the attachment included a file named "ForFedi.docx". With the manager who sent me this, a dialogue took place something like this:

Dear manager, are you personally ready to approach this respected person and name him in the face of Fedya?

Somehow no, respected person, everyone calls him by name and patronymic.

Why did you call the attachment "ForFedi"? If I send him right now, do you think he will buy axes from us for this CP?

I was going to rename later ...

Why prepare a time bomb - a potential client's rejection - or do yourself the extra work of renaming a file? Why not immediately name the attachment correctly: "For Fyodor Mikhailovich.docx" or even better - "KP_Nebo_Topory.docx".

So, we have more or less sorted out with email as a "face". Let's move on to looking at email as a tool for effective work and talk about its distraction.

Working with letters

Email is a powerful distraction. As with any distraction, mail must be dealt with by tightening the rules and implementing a work schedule.

At a minimum, you need to turn off ALL notifications about the arrival of mail. If the mail client is configured by default, you will be notified with a sound signal, and the icon next to the clock will blink, and a preview of the letter will be shown. In a word, they will do everything to first tear you away from painstaking work, and then plunge you into the abyss of unread letters and unseen mailings - minus an hour or two from life.

Someone's powerful willpower allows them not to be distracted by notifications, and for ordinary people it is better not to tempt fate and turn them off. In Mozillla Thunderbird, this is done through the menu "Tools" → "Options" → "General" → "When new messages appear".

If there are no notifications, how to understand that a letter has arrived?

Very simple. You yourself, consciously, set aside time for parsing mail, open the mail client and see all unread messages. This can be done twice a day, for example, at lunchtime and in the evening, or during forced downtime, for example, in traffic jams.

Often asked, what about reaction times and urgent emails? I answer: you have no urgent letters in the mail. Unless you work in the customer support department (such a department has its own rules for working with mail).

If there are urgent letters, the sender will notify you about this via other channels - phone, SMS, Skype. Then you will deliberately go into the mail client and process urgent mail. All time management gurus (for example, Gleb Arkhangelsky with his "Time Drive") declare the standard for responding to email up to 24 hours. This is a normal rule of good manners - do not expect instant replies from the interlocutor by email. If there is an urgent letter, notify about it via faster communication channels.

So, we turned off notifications and now we turn on the mail client according to our schedule.

So what should we do when we went to the mailbox and started the activity called “parsing email”? Where is the beginning and end of this work?

I have heard a lot about the zero inbox system, but, unfortunately, have not met a single person using it. I had to reinvent my wheel. There are articles on this topic on Lifehacker. For example, " ". Below I will talk about the zero inbox system in my interpretation. I would be grateful if GTD gurus would mark in the comments, add or improve the described system.

It is important to understand and accept that email is not a task scheduler or archive for your activities. Therefore, the Inbox folder should always be empty. If you have taken up the parsing of your inbox, do not stop and do not be distracted by anything until you empty this folder.

What to do with emails in your inbox? You need to go through each letter sequentially and delete it. Yes, just select and press Delete on your keyboard. If you can't bring yourself to delete the letter, you will have to decide what to do with it.

Can you answer it in three minutes? Do I need to answer it? Yes, it is necessary, and the answer will take no more than three minutes, then answer immediately.
You need to answer, but preparing the answer will take more than three minutes. If you use a task planner that allows you to turn an email into a task, turn your email into a task and forget about it for a while. For example, I use the absolutely wonderful Doit.im service. It allows you to generate a personal email address: you forward a letter to it, and it turns into a task. But if you do not have a task scheduler, move the letter to the "0_Run" subfolder.
After a quick response to a letter, turning it into a task or a simple familiarization, you need to decide what to do with this message next: delete or send it to one of the folders for long-term storage.

These are the folders I have for long-term storage.

0_Run. I don’t have such a folder, but if you don’t have a planner, I repeat, you can put letters here that require detailed study. This folder also needs to be cleaned regularly, but with a thoughtful approach at a specially allocated time.
1_Ref. This is where I put letters with reference information: welcome letters with logins from various web services, tickets for upcoming flights, and so on.
2_Projects. The archive of correspondence on partners and projects with which there is a current relationship is stored here. Naturally, a separate folder is created for each project or partner. In the folder of a partner, I put letters not only from his employees, but also letters from employees of "Heaven" related to this partner. Very convenient: if necessary, all correspondence on the project is at hand in a couple of clicks.
3_Museum. Here I am throwing those letters that are a pity to delete, and the benefits of them are not obvious. Also, folders with closed projects from "2_Projects" migrate here. In a word, the first candidates for deletion are kept in the "Museum".
4_Documents. Here are letters with electronic samples of documents that may be useful in the future for accounting, for example, statements of reconciliation from clients, tickets for trips. The folder in many respects has something in common with the folders "2_Projects" and "1_Sprav", only it stores accounting information, and the folder "2_Projects" - management information. In "4_Documents" - dead information, and in "2_Projects" - alive.
5_Knowledge. This is where I only add really useful mailings, which I want to return to after a while for inspiration or search for solutions.

There are other settings of the mail client that are important for the operation of this system. First, by default, Thunderbird has the Mark messages as read checkbox selected. I prefer to do it deliberately, so the checkbox is gone! To do this, go to the menu "Tools" → "Options" → "Advanced" → "Read and display".

Second, we use filters ... Earlier, I actively applied filters that automatically forwarded letters to the appropriate folders by the sender's address. For example, letters from a lawyer were moved to the “Lawyer” folder. I refused this approach for several reasons. First: letters from a lawyer in 99% of cases refer to a project or partner, which means that they must be moved to the folder of this partner or project. Second, I decided to add awareness. You yourself must decide where a specific letter should be stored, and it is more convenient to search for unprocessed messages only in one place - in the inbox. Now I use filters only for categorizing automatic regular letters from various systems into folders, that is, letters that do not require me to make decisions. Filters in Mozilla Thunderbird are configured in the "Tools" → "Message Filters" menu.

So, with the right approach, email should take between 10 and 60 minutes a day, depending on the volume of correspondence.

Yes, and one more thing. You have already turned off notifications about the arrival of new letters? ;)

Business communication is its own world with its own laws. A lot depends on how we comply with these laws: the impression we make on colleagues and partners, work productivity and even career advancement.

A special place in business communication is occupied by business correspondence, which is the daily responsibility of most office workers and not only. The ability to properly conduct business correspondence can be a good help for concluding profitable deals and shaping your business image.

Let's take a look at some of the features of a business letter. So, business correspondence is:

use of template phrases and cliches
emotional neutrality,
semantic accuracy and brevity of presentation,
well-built argumentation.

Business correspondence in English is the same set of rules and clichés, some of which we recommend to use for everyone who works with foreign partners or in international companies. We bring to your attention a few useful phrases that will brighten up your business correspondence. These phrases will emphasize your professionalism and help shape the image of a business person. Start? M!

1.Please find attached

Let's start with the classics. It is often necessary to attach various documents or other files to a letter. In order to notify the recipient about the presence of an attachment, this phrase is perfect. After all, the word "Attachment" in translation means "attachment". The phrase should be used at the end of the letter.

Here are a couple of examples of use:

Please find attached my portfolio.
Please find attached copy of the agreement / contract.

2.I have forwarded

You can use this phrase if you need to forward the letter to other recipients. To notify the addressee of this, the phrase "I have forwarded" is perfect. For example:

I have forwarded Anna’s CV to you.
I have forwarded John’s email to you.

3.I’ve cc’ed

A person uninitiated into all the secrets of the peculiarities of business correspondence may not understand what this strange abbreviation means. But we are professionals. “I’ve cc’ed” is an abbreviation that stands for I have carbon copied. The phrase means "put someone in a copy to receive letters."

So if you need to let someone know that you have put other recipients in the copy, feel free to use this phrase. For instance:

I’ve cc’ed Sara on this email.
I’ve cc’ed Jack and Jimmy on these emails.

As for abbreviations that cannot be used in business correspondence, an exception is usually made for this case.

4.For further details

This phrase is a proven way to politely end your letter in English. "For further details" means "for more details", "for more details". Examples of using:

For further details contact me any time.
For further details write to our Sales-manager.

Another phrase to help you finish politely is "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me." Translated, this means "If you have any questions, feel free to write to me."

5.I look forward to

The phrase "look forward" means "look forward." So if you are anxiously awaiting a response or some other action from the addressee, then it would be quite appropriate to use this phrase. For instance:

I look forward to your answer.
I'm looking forward to your reply.

The phrase is best used at the end of the letter.

When writing a letter, you need to be polite even when you don't really feel like it. The ability to write competent letters in any situation reflects your professionalism, good manners and knowledge of business ethics. In conclusion, let us remind you that in business correspondence you must show the accuracy of the wording and impeccable literacy. It is also unacceptable to use abbreviations (with rare exceptions).

Write emails in English correctly, dear friends! Good luck!

We send dozens of emails every day. Sometimes these are very short messages, such as: "Shall we go to lunch?" Sometimes - with the help of which you present your business or website. When there are a lot of letters and little time, we start to rush and make mistakes. Usually trivial, like typos, but sometimes there are some that can damage your reputation and ruin your relationship with a client or employee.

This can be avoided, you just need to be collected and know about some pitfalls. Here are the most common mistakes made when sending emails. Read carefully and remember that first you need to make a short pause, check if everything is in order, and only then click on the "Send" button.

You are typing the wrong address

The most common and most unpleasant mistake. Imagine you want to send some pretty personal photos to a friend or girlfriend, but automatically type in the address of your boss or customer. And only after the letter has left, you realize with horror what has happened now. If this will console you, then each of us has found himself in such a situation at least once in his life: lawyers sent confidential documents to the opposite side, designers sent website layouts to the wrong client, etc. But when this happens to us, it seems that the earth is leaving under our feet.

Fortunately, many mail services, for example, in the same Gmail, have a function. Turn it on and specify a long time interval - so, you know, quieter.

You forgot about the investment

You wrote that a certain file was attached to the letter, but forgot to attach it. Another common mistake that often leads to misunderstandings and apologies. On the one hand, it's okay, no one is perfect, but it's better to check everything first, and only then send a letter. And to avoid questions from the recipient, we recommend listing all attached files right in the body of the letter. For example, like this:

Hi Maxim! I am sending you several files, they are attached:

Service agreement

GIF with a cat

You don't think about decoration

They are greeted, as you remember, by their clothes. If you want your letter to not be prompted to immediately delete it, work on its form. They say she needs to devote as much time as content. Fortunately, today it is easy. To do this, we recommend using the Wix ShoutOut app, choosing a suitable template and adding your text to it. No special knowledge is required, just make sure that everything looks neat and beautiful. By the way, good newsletters have their own secrets and rules, so we recommend reading our email marketing director. Don't thank.

You do not include a subject line

The subject line plays a role similar to the heading of the text. It appears next to your name, the recipient sees it and understands what you sent him: invoice, meeting results, job offer, website layout, etc. Remember that the topic should be clearly formulated so that, if necessary, a person can quickly find your letter, and convincing, so that he is interested, if we are talking, for example, about a mailing list. Not so long ago, we wrote that if you have forgotten it is worth rereading.

You don't save drafts

If you like writing letters in text editors, then save more often, otherwise it will turn out that you spent the whole day over the letter, and then suddenly the computer froze and everything was gone. Or write directly to the mail service - then all your sketches will be automatically saved in the "Drafts" folder.

You are being impolite

Politeness in correspondence is no less important than in life. Here are the basic rules that everyone needs to follow:

Always thank the sender for the letter, especially if you see that he did a good job. Remember when we were all taught "magic" words? Let's not forget them, despite the fact that we are already adults.

Remain calm, even if the matter is extremely urgent and important. Nervousness and reproaches will definitely not lead to anything good.

Start and end the letter with common phrases. The degree of formality will depend on who you are texting with. If it's your boss or just an official, don't use Hello, Goodbye, or Kisses. And vice versa, if you write to a colleague or friend, you can do without the traditional "Sincerely".

You don't proofread text

Typos can ruin the whole experience, so reread the letter carefully, preferably several times. In doubt about spelling or syntax - go to Gramotu.ru ... It is better to measure seven times, that is, to check, than to then apologize for typos and prove that you are actually literate.

And by the way: if you are afraid to accidentally send an unfinished letter, first write the entire text in full, and only then type the recipient's address.

You don't put the right people in the copy of the letter

Let's see who can receive your letter at all. The To field is the primary recipient. The "Cc" field is the person who will receive the copy. He is not directly related to the issue under discussion, but he wants or should be aware of. The "Bcc" field are hidden recipients. You add them, but the primary recipient doesn't see them. And here you need to be careful: you can confuse Cc and Bcc, and then the recipient will think that he is being spied on.

Keep in mind that it is important for some people to be aware of what is happening. You do not want to listen to reproaches on the topic “How could you not add me to the copy ?! I worked on this project for two months! " If in doubt, add everyone who has anything to do with the question. Maybe not everyone will be happy that they are distracted, but there will be no complaints about you.

You do not subscribe

You wrote "Sincerely, Masha" and you think that everything is in order, but the recipient of the letter sits and wonders what kind of Masha she is. From the printing house? Maybe an illustrator? In order not to make him get lost in conjectures - set up a signature, and it will be automatically added to the end of each of your messages. Be sure to include your first name, last name, company name, job title, and contact information such as skype or phone number. You can add an address - although this is an advertisement, it is unobtrusive.

You're picking the wrong time

Writing letters at night is not a good idea. Reason one: you are probably terribly tired during the day, you are not very good at thinking and risk making all these mistakes. Reason two: an avalanche of morning mail will bury your midnight letter, and the addressee will not see it in the near future. And the third: apparently, you have nothing else to do, since you write business letters at three in the morning.

Our advice: if nothing Important and Urgent happens, send messages from Monday to Friday and during business hours, like all normal people.

Need to for your business? Create one yourself on Wix - it's easy and free!

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