Better English Writing - Geddes Grosset Webster’s Word Power 2014
Emails and letters
Writing for work or business
This section focuses on writing emails and letters in the workplace. This time we’re focussing on writing to customers.
General approach
When you are emailing and writing letters to customers, it’s even more important to take the right approach. Informal and sloppy messages are unprofessional and just won’t do. Imagine you are a customer and receive a letter in text-speak in response to a complaint. How would you feel? You would probably think that you weren’t being taken seriously, or that your complaint wasn’t being dealt with in a professional way. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again - no matter what you are writing, it needs to be clear and easy to understand, or you won’t get your message across. This is essential when you are communicating with customers.
Keep the following points in mind when you are emailing or writing to customers:
✵ Be clear and concise.
✵ If you are writing a letter and it has a lot of information, break it up into short paragraphs with subheadings.
✵ If you are writing an email, send any large chunks of additional information as an attachment.
✵ Always remember that you are writing to a customer and be professional in your approach.
Style and tone
When you are writing emails or letters to customers, your style and tone should be formal and professional. Don’t use slang, abbreviations, emoticons or text-speak:
Soz I 4got 2 send the order, bro
It’s difficult to understand, unprofessional and will therefore give a bad impression of both you and your organisation.
Remember also to use proper grammar, spelling, punctuation and formatting. If you use lower case where there should be a capital letter and ignore proper sentence
structure, you will come across as sloppy and unprofessional.
Here’s an example:
their wasn’t any things left in wearhouse sorry I didn’t get the order by you.
House style
A house style is a set of rules that states how all documents and written communications from a business should be formatted.
The aim of house style is to present a recognisable, consistent image of a company to the outside world. Your company will probably have a house style, so check this out before you start to write emails or letters.
House style covers things like:
✵ font style and size - for example, don’t use Times Roman if the house style uses Arial
✵ colours used - for example, house style might use dark blue text in emails and letters, rather than black
✵ whether text should be right justified, left justified, centred or unjustified
✵ how the address and contact details should be presented.
Good practice
The section on ’Emails and texting in the office’ will remind you of the basics of writing a business email. ’How to wr ite an effective covering letter ’ in the ’Applying for a job’ section in this chapter will remind you of the basic format and structure of a business letter. Here are some key points about writing emails and letters specifically for customers, followed by an example of an email and a letter to a customer.
Writing emails to customers
Here are some key points:
✵ Don’t use ’Hi’. Use ’Dear Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms’.
✵ Take as much time and care with an email as you would do with a letter.
✵ Use ’plain text’ rather than HTML (this creates emails that are in the style of web pages). Some people will be accessing their emails from hand-held devices such as smartphones that can only display text.
✵ Structure your email as you would a letter - that is, with a beginning, middle and end. This will help the reader to understand what you are writing quickly and easily.
✵ Break up long paragraphs and use bulleted lists. This helps the reader to digest large chunks of information.
✵ Don’t attach files or images that are bigger than 5MB because this can cause problems for the person receiving your email.
✵ Remember that your company’s disclaimer probably won’t protect you if you deliberately mislead your customer or lie to them.
Always check over an email before you send it out.
Example of an email to a customer
From: julie.brown@glassesforyou.com
Sent: 21 January 2013 12.07
To: johnsmith@brownandbrown.com
Subject: Delivery of broken crystal glasses
Dear Mr Smith
Thank you for your email of 21 July 2012, informing us that three of the six crystal glasses you ordered from our website were broken on arrival.
We are extremely sorry about this. We have systems and procedures in place to make sure that our fragile glassware is packed as carefully as possible, and are looking into why these failed in your case. We will email you when we have found out what happened.
You told us in your email that these glasses are needed urgently for a wedding present, so we have packed another box and will send it by courier to your work address in Edinburgh today. It will arrive by 4.30pm at the latest.
We hope that this will make up for your earlier disappointment, and look forward to have you shopping with us again in the future.
Yours sincerely
Julie Brown
Customer Services Manager
julie.brown@glassesforyou.com
www.glassesforyou.com
0171 888 888
Writing letters to customers
Here are some key points:
✵ Your letter needs a structure - a clear beginning, middle and end - to help the reader digest the information quickly and easily.
✵ Don’t over-punctuate. You don’t need full stops in the date or in the name or commas in the address.
✵ The date is usually written as 7 April 2012 rather than 7th April 2012.
✵ Use ’Dear Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms’ unless you are on first-name terms with the reader. If you don’t know the reader’s name, then use ’Dear Sir’ or ’Dear Madam’.
✵ You usually start a letter with ’Thank you for your letter of 7 April’. If you use ’I acknowledge receipt of’ or ’Further to your recent’ you can come over as stuffy and old-fashioned.
✵ If you think a heading is necessary, then use bold rather than capitals. Don’t use ’re:’.
✵ If you started the letter with ’Dear Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Sir or Madam’ then end it with ’Yours faithfully’. If you started the letter with ’Dear Sue’ then end it with ’Yours sincerely’.
✵ Include your contact details in case the reader wants to get back in touch with you.
✵ Always check over the letter before you send it.
Example of a letter to a customer
Julie Brown
Customer Services Manager
Glasses For You
Bankhead Industrial Estate
Aberford AD12 6FG
21 July 2012
Mr J Smith
Company Offices
Brown and Brown Ltd
High Street
Aberford AD11 1FH
Dear Mr Smith
Delivery of broken crystal glasses
I emailed you this morning to apologise for the fact that three of the six crystal glasses you ordered from our website were broken on arrival.
You should receive this letter from the courier who is delivering another box of glasses to you at your work address. Please open the box and inspect the glasses to make sure that they are undamaged. I have asked the courier to wait until you have checked them, although I am sure that they will arrive in pristine condition.
As promised, we are currently looking into why the breakages happened in the first place. I will email you as soon as I know what happened. In the meantime, because you are a valued customer, please accept a voucher for £15 to make up for our mistake.
Please contact me if you have any other issues you would like to discuss. I am here to help.
Yours faithfully
Julie Brown
Customer Services Manager
julie.brown@glassesforyou.com
www.glassesforyou.com
0171 888 888
