How to Conduct Proper Business Correspondence With Customers
Business correspondence is any communication or information exchange in a written form inside the office or between companies and organizations. It is highly important to build the trustful and respectful relationships with customers and colleagues. Knowing simple rules of holding a correspondence will help every employee to keep a healthy and productive working environment and this is an important part of going toward any business target.
Business letters are the most formal method of the communication following specific formats. They are addressed to a particular person or organization.
A good business letter follows next principles of successful communication:
- Be very polite;
- Never use any kind of slang;
- Learn to hear and understand your interlocutorβs opinion;
- Be grammatically correct;
- Be clear and brief;
- Donβt talk about things you are not competent in;
- Be open and flexible in holding a conversation.
Nowadays, modern organizations use email as a way of business correspondence in the vast majority of cases. But the letters may also be hand-written or printed and sent by fax. It is not as quick and effective as electronic mail, but these means still have a right to exist. As for e-mails, they are mostly done in a conversational style.
Five common errors made in business correspondence
Business is not always about strict rules and forms. When the case concerns your professional business plan writing, you may be free in regards to format and creativity. When you write a business e-mail with mistakes, your letter looks not very professional. To avoid this situation, keep practicing the next simple rules of correctly constructed communication:
1. When you start a letter, it is very important to choose proper words. The form βI am writing in respect ofββ¦. is incorrect, but this mistake is very widespread. Instead, you can use other variants like I am writing in reference to/ with regard to/ concerning/regarding…/
It is also important to clarify at a start the goal of your correspondence as there different types of business letters based on a context. They are as following:
- letters of inquiry;
- letters of complains;
- letters of application;
- letters approval or dismissal;
- letters of recommendations;
- letters of sales.
2. The second common error looks like a statement: βWe would like to regret the inconvenienceβ¦β. This sentence is trying to say that you are sorry and apologizing, but if you wish to apologize, you cannot use the phrase βwe would likeβ¦β. On such occasions, you can simply write βWe regret the inconvenience or something elseβ¦β. Or if the words βI would likeβ¦β are bounden for you, just say βI would like to apologize for smthβ. And this is it.
3. βI ensure you thatβ¦β. A lot of people think that this sentence is fine, but in fact, the word ensure may never be used with the word Β«youΒ» after it. The word βensureβ always has to be followed by a fact, not by a person. You could say: βI ensure that we give the best services to youβ. Note that you can always say: βI assure you that youβll receive the best of our servicesβ.
4. βYou will receive feedback until next Wednesdayβ The common error in this example is the word βuntilβ. This word is used only for a time period when there is a continuous series of events that happen. When you would like to inform about one single event like in the example, you should use the word βbyβ. βYou will receive feedback by next Wednesdayβ.
5 . Many people make a mistake in sentences like βI look forward to receive your replyβ. Here you can never use βtoβ after βforwardβ. Instead, you should use the verb, which has -ing at the end of it after βtoβ. The correct version would be βI look forward to receiving your feedbackβ.
We have enlightened some general points of business correspondence, and we hope that they may help you to improve your business relations and to take them to the next level in the future.
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