Business correspondence - basics, types, features, rules for conducting business correspondence. Rules for business correspondence: examples

Anyone who strives to look decent in business circles always uses. And he always remembers the main thing - the email should not tarnish either the addressee, or the reputation of the company of which he is a representative, or the business image.

The ability to correctly and competently conduct business electronic correspondence is the main component of the image of a modern manager. This is both a sign of general cultural level and an indicator of personal professionalism. In accordance with how a person is able to formulate and formalize his thoughts, one can confidently judge his attitude towards others and towards himself personally. A carelessly written email can easily ruin the author’s business reputation in the eyes of partners and colleagues.

Rules for business correspondence by email

2. Clearly understand who your message is addressed to and to whom the information contained in it may be useful. Who is your letter addressed to? To the client? To a partner? Colleague? To a subordinate? To the boss? The addressee is indicated in the “to” column, those interested are indicated in the “copy”. Never send extra copies, especially to your boss. If third parties are mentioned in the email, then they are also usually included in the “copy” column.

3. Formulate the purpose of the message for yourself. What goal do you set for yourself: what do you strive to achieve from the reader of your letter? What reaction do you expect? The recipient, having read your message, should immediately understand what you need from him. Rules for conducting electronic correspondence:

If you want to bring an individual perspective to events - from the first person (we, I)
If your message is of an inquiry or instructional nature - from the 2nd person (you, you)
If you are writing a letter as an outside observer and want to inform the addressee about accomplished facts or events - in the 3rd person (they, she, he).

4. Do not leave the “subject” field empty. Most people who receive an email begin examining the correspondence by looking at the subject field. A person makes the decision to read a letter in a few seconds, so the content of the letter should be reflected in the subject line. The topic should be short, specific and informative.

5. Keep the content clear: address and greeting, main part, summary, signature, contacts. Any letter must contain email etiquette. Don’t be lazy and don’t skip any part of the accepted content; a correctly formatted letter is an indicator of your professionalism.

6. Addressing and greeting the addressee is an indicator of your respect for him. If possible, begin each letter with a personal message and greeting. A sign of politeness is to address your interlocutor by name. After the address, put a comma if you want to give the message an everyday character. And if you want to emphasize formality and significance, use an exclamation point, even if this letter is addressed to a colleague with whom you often communicate.

7. Adhere to the principle: short and clear (KY). One of the main rules of business email correspondence is “minimum words - maximum information.” Present your thoughts specifically (clearly), consistently, concisely and in a way that is easy to understand. Sentences should be short, this makes it easier for the addressee to convey the necessary information. There is one The golden rule of emails– portioned, one topic – one letter. It is better to send several emails (each with one topic) than one large message with several unrelated ideas.

8. Do not turn informal communication into business correspondence. There is no emotion in the email! If you want to emphasize the points set out in your email message emotionally, the emotional subtext must be hidden behind a neutral, externally calm and correct tone of presentation. It is achieved by content, not by language.

9. Adhere to a clear structure of the main text of the letter. Most often, a letter consists of three parts:

The reason for writing the letter (reason, grounds). This part is usually as short as possible
Consistent presentation of the essence of the issue
Solutions, requests, proposals, conclusions

10. The appearance of the message should be extremely easy to understand. Divide the text into paragraphs, which should contain no more than five to six lines. It is better to separate paragraphs from each other with a blank line. Choose one color and one font, so the text will be better perceived. It is better not to use exclamation marks, emoticons, abbreviations, or cursive elements unless absolutely necessary.

11. Write correctly. Illiterate writing indicates that the author is not educated enough. Your business reputation is discredited by typos and errors in the text. Before sending a letter, email etiquette recommends that you re-read the letter carefully. Many email programs and text editors can check punctuation and spelling, and if errors are found, they offer correction options. This service is required to write emails.

12. Consider what documentation needs to be included in the attachments. You should not include detailed information in the body of the letter; it is better to send it as a separate file. In the subject line of the email, be sure to indicate which file you are inserting, otherwise the recipient may regard it as a virus. All files must be scanned with anti-virus software before sending.

14. Postscript is extremely rarely used in business correspondence. If you use a postscript in your message, this is an indication that you have not thought enough about the content of the letter.

15. Only in special cases is a read receipt given. Typically, a read receipt should be set only for external recipients and only when a response is expected from the recipient.

16. Use the “high importance” checkbox only when it is really necessary. If the email contains important information that needs urgent attention, set the importance to “high.” This will highlight your email in your inbox. But it is not recommended to abuse this function needlessly.

17. Re-read the letter before sending it. Is everything concise, specific, understandable, and is there any inappropriate information or grammatical errors? Are the recipient details correct? Check the sequence and logic of presentation.

19. The one who initiated the correspondence ends the electronic dialogue.

20. Remember that Rules for email correspondence, or rather their compliance is an indicator of a modern professional manager.

In principle, questions about how and by what means can be created and sent should not arise. However, not everyone is ready to immediately begin this task when it comes to official letters, especially when the author of the letter expects to receive a response. I’ll tell you a little secret of business correspondence: the stricter the character and style of the letter, the greater the chance of a response from the recipient. In this lesson, I will provide several sample emails that should help users decide on their own style and subsequently compose messages in the most competent way.

First, we need to decide what nature the letter we are creating will be. I divide all outgoing emails into three main types:

• Business offer
• Business inquiry
• Friendly address

Accordingly, for all three types I have templates, both in the form of simple text files and in the form of templates tailored for specific email programs. Let's move on to each of them in order.

Business offer

Hello (Good afternoon), [name of the person being addressed]!

It is advisable to indicate the name in any letter when communicating, because a personal address puts a person in a friendly mood. However, if you still can’t find out the name, a template greeting will suffice.

Let me introduce to your attention a new service (new product) from our company [company name].

Let me offer cooperation in the field of [name of field of activity].

Next, briefly describe the advantages of your proposal in terms of price or some quality characteristics. The main thing is not to overdo it. Megabytes of text, and even supplemented with bright, meaningless pictures, only scare people away. If the recipient of the letter is interested in your offer from the first lines, he will definitely contact you for additional information.

If you're serious about getting the right people to contact you the first time you contact them, then it makes sense to think about reach beyond just email. It would be a good idea to create accounts in services such as ICQ andSkype. Sometimes it is much easier for a person to contact you by regular phone, if, of course, you thoughtfully left the number in your signature.

Why do you need to duplicate your own e-mail address in the signature, you ask, if it is automatically forwarded by the mail server. The rule here is that excessive information in business correspondence is never unnecessary. Let’s imagine a situation where your letter is received by a person who is potentially not interested in the offer, or who is simply not competent to respond to it correctly. It forwards the received message to another user, but for some reason, information about the true sender is lost from the automatically added data, which makes it difficult to contact you. However, it will always be enough to look at the signature to determine the author of the letter and his necessary contacts.

Business inquiry

Hello (Good afternoon)!

Or, if the addressee's name is known, then (Dear, [Name, Patronymic])!

Please provide information about the product (service) [name of product/service] with a description of the full characteristics and competitive qualities.

Based on the Federal Law of the Russian Federation [number and date of the document], I ask you to provide information [describe the data necessary to obtain].

You can also contact the management of a particular service on the Internet if your rights are violated.

In connection with the violation of clause [clause number in the user agreement] of the user agreement, namely: “[quote the full text of the said clause]”, I ask you to conduct an investigation and take appropriate sanctions against the guilty [responsible (if we are talking about service employees)] person [site (site name)]. Please report the results of the inspection and the sanctions imposed to [your own email address].

Friendly address

Greetings (Good day) (Hello), [person's name]!

When you first contact us in a friendly manner, a good indicator will be the completeness of your text message. A correctly written, voluminous text will indicate your high interest in contacting the right person and will arouse a desire for a response. Don't forget to open up the conversation with a few initial questions.

Example email

An integral part of the work of many organizations is business correspondence, which has many rules and features. Not only secretaries, but also other employees should be able to write letters for contact with partners and other employees.

Business correspondence concept

This term refers to the exchange of commercial and business information. There is a certain etiquette for business correspondence, which is even taught in special courses. The letter must be drawn up according to the rules, since it will create and maintain the reputation of the company, and also form a serious attitude towards the organization. A business letter, from a technical point of view, is a tool aimed at improving communication between different companies or departments.

Types of business correspondence

There are several types of documents, and each of them contains its own rules for execution and submission. The basics of business correspondence are also used when communicating via e-mail. Experts distinguish the following types of business letters: thank you letters, requests, demands, apologies, refutations, congratulations and condolences. In addition, there are commercial letters, which include claims, refusals, reminders, guarantees, and so on.

How to conduct business correspondence correctly?

When composing a letter, it is important to pay attention to all details. When describing the rules of business correspondence, it is worth paying attention to the following aspects:

1. If you are writing a letter in which you need to answer specific questions asked by the author, then it would be appropriate to quote each of them separately. To do this, use numbering and break the text into paragraphs.
2. When composing a letter, you need to briefly comment on all the documents attached either by you or by your interlocutor. This is important so that the recipient immediately understands the essence of the letter.
3. The letter must be signed by the manager and stamped.

Rules for conducting business correspondence

Errors when composing business letters are unacceptable, so it is important to know the basic rules for composing them:

1. Do not use words whose meaning is unknown, or check their interpretation using a dictionary.
2. Conducting business correspondence excludes the use of specific terminology, since some words may be unknown to the addressee. If such terms are used, then provide an explanation.
3. Express your thoughts in short sentences so that the main point is not lost.
4. If you don’t know the Russian language thoroughly, then it’s better to first type the text in an editor or in a document on your computer to check your spelling.
5. Business correspondence does not allow the use of colloquial words, literary expressions, and so on. Before sending a letter, check it for errors and typos. It is better to check again after a while.

Beginning of a letter in business correspondence

First, in the structure of the letter there is a “header”, which contains the position and full name of the addressee. Features of business correspondence include the standard address “Dear,” which in most cases is written in the center of the page. If the person is unfamiliar, then the word “Mr.” is written before the last name. The first paragraph (preamble) includes the purpose and reason for the letter. After reading it, the addressee should understand the main meaning of the message.

Request in business correspondence

One of the popular types of business correspondence is a request letter. This could be a tactful request or a diplomatic demand on a current issue. Business writing skills are important for writing requests because they should motivate the recipient to take the action required by the writer. There are certain rules for writing a letter:

1. The addressee should be addressed personally, observing the basics of business etiquette.
2. To explain to the recipient the reason for the request, you can give him a compliment, highlight his business or personal qualities and merits.
3. Give reasons for the request and interest the addressee in fulfilling it. The problem should be described as concisely and clearly as possible.
4. Once the request is made, it should be modified and repeated again, emphasizing the potential benefits.

How to remind yourself in business correspondence?

A reminder letter is used when you need to remind about the fulfillment of undertaken obligations, compliance with the law, the approach of an important event, and so on. In most cases, a verbal reminder is used before it. As a result, the letter serves as some kind of evidence of the action taken. A reminder in business correspondence includes:

1. Information about the sender and recipient. After this, the reason for the reminder is stated.
2. Links to laws and regulations related to the issue being recalled are provided.
3. The phrases of business correspondence should be clear, but not threatening. It would not be amiss to remind you that the problem can be solved peacefully.
4. The letter has no standards, so it can be written in free form.

How to properly apologize in business correspondence?

One of the most difficult letters to write is an apology letter, which requires you to both apologize and save face for the company. In addition, it is aimed at restoring damaged relationships. Business correspondence indicates the following features of the apology:

1. The structure of the letter includes the indication of the recipient, the subject of the message and the message.
2. You don’t have to specify the performer, since management will sign everything.
3. Phrases of apology in business correspondence should not be explicit and the subject of the letter should be neutral or absent altogether.
4. The effect that needs to be achieved is a sincere apology and information about what happened, that is, an indication of the reason for the unpleasant situation.

Rules for business correspondence by email

All the rules mentioned earlier are also relevant for electronic correspondence, but there are still a number of features:

1. A work email should be used exclusively for official correspondence, since all letters are saved on the server and can be read by another person.
2. Business email correspondence requires the use of a readable font and it is best to choose Arial or Times New Roman. The size of the letters should be medium. The text should not contain Caps Lock, exclamation marks or special characters. It is acceptable to highlight certain phrases in italics or bold, but only use this if absolutely necessary.
3. For better readability, use subheadings, but keep in mind that their number should not be large, so the maximum is 3-4 pieces. One paragraph should not be longer than four lines.
4. Business email ethics does not allow the subject field to be left blank. Write here the essence of the letter, which should be specific, informative and concise.
5. You must include your signature and contact information at the end, and it should not take more than six lines. Use the following structure: “With respect,” first and last name, company name, phone number, e-mail, and website address.
6. In business correspondence, it is appropriate to use a corporate template in your corporate style. Thanks to this, it will be possible to stand out from others and at the same time comply with the rules of business correspondence. It is important not to forget that the letter can be read not only on a computer screen, but also on a phone, so the template must be optimized for the resolution of different screens.

Books on business correspondence

To better understand all the intricacies of writing a business letter, you can read useful literature. The following works are considered good:

1. « The art of business writing. Laws, tricks, tools» S. Karepina. The author explains what business style of correspondence is, how to properly leave different types of letters and reports.
2. « Business e-mail correspondence. Five Rules for Success" The author describes forms of business correspondence and offers tools to help make communication more effective. Here you can find useful tips and tricks.

Success in the activities of any organization, commercial firm or enterprise is inextricably linked with culture of behavior and etiquette. All actions of the manager and employees must certainly take into account the rules of good manners and be appropriate to the situation.

One of the most important parts of etiquette is business correspondence.

It is estimated that almost 50% of the time at work is spent dealing with papers and mail. But this is necessary, since competent business correspondence can significantly increase a company’s turnover and speed up the interaction of different services and departments.

Of course, there are certain patterns here, and we will definitely talk about them in this article. The rules of business correspondence have long been standardized. The existing GOST R.6.30-2003 will help you correctly place the text on the sheet, tell you what indents, margins, and fonts to make. Business correspondence is characterized by uniformity and repetition of speech patterns.

However, any letter is individual. A big imprint on it is left by the identity of the sender, his position, situation and recipient. To some extent, business correspondence is a combination of creativity and hard work.

Types of business correspondence

Document circulation is carried out on paper and via e-mail.

All correspondence at the enterprise can be divided into the following groups:

Official/informal correspondence;

Internal and external.

Official correspondence includes commercial offers, letters of gratitude and guarantees, trade agreements, orders for the enterprise, job responsibilities, requests, demands, claims.

Informal correspondence includes various congratulations from business partners, customers, and employees; condolences, apologies, invitations and thanks.

Internal documents circulate only between departments of one enterprise, while external documents go beyond its boundaries.

Rules of business correspondence: internal content

The main requirement is brevity and clarity of the letter. Do not stretch the text over several pages. The best option is to fit into one.

The rules of business correspondence involve the exclusion of complex, obscure, foreign and highly specialized words and expressions from the text. All sentences should be short, with the main thoughts of the author and without “water”.

Avoid double interpretations in your letter, otherwise if disputes arise, it will be more difficult to defend your point of view and prove what you meant by a certain phrase.

The rules for writing business correspondence oblige the writer to call the recipient by name and patronymic, preceded by the title “Dear...”. And be sure to use “you,” even if you have a good friendly relationship with the recipient of the letter.

In the introduction, in addition to indicating the last name and first name, the main purpose of the message is stated. Examples of business correspondence know enough templates and cliches for such cases: “In connection with the previous letter...”, “We remind you...”, “Let us inform...” and others.

Soften an answer unfavorable for the recipient (refusal of an offer, refusal of cooperation) with the phrases: “Unfortunately, we will not be able to take advantage of the proposed conditions...” or similar.

External paper documentation

Any business letter must be written on company letterhead with company details and all contact information.

Be sure to include the exact date of the document.

The upper right corner of the sheet is occupied by the initials of the addressee and the address of the recipient company.

Break the text into meaningful paragraphs to make it easier for the reader to understand and perceive it. No more than 4-5 lines.

Writing all words in capital letters is bad form.

Documents may be attached to the letter. In this case, they are listed in a separate line in the lower left part of the sheet. According to business etiquette, a response to a letter must be received within 10 days. If the problem requires more time to resolve, the addressee must notify this.

After writing, you should be sure to carefully check the text again for errors, both spelling and grammar. If you have time, you should put the letter aside and return to it again later. As a rule, inaccuracies will be discovered that were not noticed at first. This advice is most important when responding to a customer complaint. You shouldn’t irritate a person even more with an illiterately written letter.

When the document is written and checked a couple of times, print it on A4 paper. This size is the standard size used for any correspondence, even if the text itself only takes up half a sheet.

Test the ink in the printer before printing to avoid blurry or sloppy output.

In some cases, you can attach your business card to the document, and enclose the printed sheet itself in a transparent file.

A branded envelope with the company logo is also considered good form.

The rules for conducting informal business correspondence are often more emotional than in business papers and less clichéd. Abbreviations and the use of colorful adjectives are appropriate here, for example, in congratulations: amazing, responsive, kind.

Business emails

The fact that you are not sending correspondence in an envelope through the postal network should not be relaxing. The rules of business correspondence also apply in these cases.

Competent and correct electronic business messages create a positive image of both the enterprise and a specific person. Reputation in business is worth a lot!

Basic rules for correspondence by e-mail

Use your work email address only for its intended purpose.

Pay attention to the name of the mailbox. Do not use incorrect names when working, such as “baby”, “superman”, even if they are indicated in English transcription.

Always fill in the “subject” column, otherwise your letter may end up in spam. Descriptions like “plan”, “list”, “commercial proposal”, “report” are not suitable. There may be quite a lot of similar letters in your recipient's inbox. Be as specific as possible about what your message is about. Don't use more than five words. Capitalize your subject. There is no need to put a period at the end.

If you are replying to a previously received email, be sure to remove the “Re” in the subject line.

Communication style

Keep the letter in a businesslike format. Remove the threatening, pleading, commanding tone.

The rules of electronic business correspondence do not allow the use of emoticons or a large number of question marks or exclamation marks in the text.

Be polite. A mandatory greeting at the beginning and farewell to the interlocutor at the end is good form. For example, “With respect...” or like this: “Sincerely yours...”.

Business email correspondence and its “golden rule”: do not mix several different topics in one message. It's better to send a series of letters.

An email should be half as long as a paper letter.

Working with attachments

If there is too much information to convey, do not put it all in the body of the letter, but attach it as separate documents as attachments.

For the convenience of the recipient, rename the documents you prepared to names that he understands. This will show your interest and win you over. Think about how many work folders the recipient has on his computer and how he will search for your letter among them.

Be sure to inform the recipient about the files you are sending so that he does not consider them a random virus. Archive large documents.

It is best to send too large attachments (over 200 kbytes) in other ways, for example, through an ftp server.

Some mail servers do not allow formats such as COM, EXE, CMD, PIF and a number of others to pass through and block them.

If there were several recipients of your letter, take the time to delete all evidence of mass forwarding each time. The addressee does not need such extra information at all. The “bcc” command will help you.

The rules for conducting business correspondence by e-mail require informing the other party that the correspondence has been received. If it is not possible to answer at the moment, notify your interlocutor about this. Save your correspondence history to avoid further questions and proceedings.

If the response is important and urgent, it is allowed to additionally notify the addressee by phone, Skype or ICQ. If even after this you were unable to achieve a positive result, remind yourself again.

It is not uncommon that when you request a document, you receive an empty letter with an attached file in response. It is unacceptable. Examples of business correspondence require that relevant information be placed in the body of the document. For example, this: “I am sending the necessary data for your request.”

Don’t forget to indicate the coordinates at the end of the letter: all available methods of communication, position, company website, links to social networks.

When writing organization contacts, provide as much information as possible - telephone number with area code, address with zip code. After all, your communication occurs not only with residents of your region. If you have all the information, it will be easier to contact you.

And the last rule: whoever started the correspondence must finish the electronic dialogue.

Conclusion

Business correspondence is a delicate matter. Sometimes one glance is enough to form a definite opinion about a person and the organization he represents. Knowing the rules of business writing can greatly help your career.

Electronic business correspondence. About the subject of the letter

This article is about filling out the Subject field in business emails.

Fill in the “Email Subject” field according to its content.

A seemingly simple thing. If you write to your partner about the deadlines for sending documents, write in the subject “About the deadlines for sending the Agreement.” If you are writing about changing your legal address, write in the subject “About changing your legal address.” But, as the practice of correspondence shows, not everything that is obvious to us is equally obvious to others...

The other day, my friend and colleague (Natasha) once again breathed a sigh of relief after receiving a letter from her business partner. And she said: “Beauty! Not a letter, but a song! I haven’t opened it yet, but I already know what he’s writing about!” And then she added: “And finding any of his letters in my mailbox is now a matter of minutes!”

“What's so special about that?” - you rightly ask. And then I will tell you why the current order in correspondence with the addressee makes my friend so happy.

Natasha is a specialist in working with clients and partners in a training company.

A little over 2 months ago, she began corresponding with a new business partner of the company. (Let's call him “Vasya”). At the beginning of an upcoming collaboration, there are always many issues that need to be discussed, clarified, clarified, consolidated, etc. On the day, Natasha and Vasya exchanged a large number of messages. But if you looked into Natasha’s inbox and looked at the correspondence thread with Vasya, you would find a completely simple picture. There are a lot of letters, but all the information comes down to two semantic points: in the “From” field it says “Vasya”, and in the subject field - “Cooperation with Perm” (The name of Natasha’s business partner and the name of the city have been changed by me for obvious reasons. As they say, Please consider any coincidences to be an accident).

Imagine the situation: the first letter has the subject “Cooperation with Perm”. From this letter, Natasha learns information about the addressee, about his company, and gets acquainted with his commercial offer. Answers. The following letters clarify the details of the work, the specifics of conducting on-site trainings, discuss financial, organizational aspects, etc. (At the end of the week, there are 17 letters from Vasya in Natasha’s mailbox). Moreover, all letters: from the first to the last, have one subject option: “Cooperation with Perm.” Now imagine what you have to do if you urgently need, for example, to find one specific letter with specific information in this correspondence. As they say, “it’s a no brainer” what you have to do: open letters at random and try to approximately remember on which day of the week this issue was discussed. I won’t talk about the time spent, the effectiveness of such a search and the accompanying emotions. And so everything is clear.

Conclusions:

1. Remember that the Subject field is an important part of the email.

2. Fill out the subject field rationally, make the information extremely informative.

For example, “Agreement.Account.Act” instead of “Documents”

3. As aspects of the issue under discussion change, clarify the topic (use an extension).

For example,

Cooperation with Perm → Cooperation with Perm. Dates → Cooperation with Perm. Agreement

4. Make the topic meaningful, but extremely brief(the number of characters visible to the addressee upon receipt in the “Subject” field is quite limited)

For example,

Cooperation with Perm → Perm.Dates → Perm.Agreement

5. If in correspondence with a business partner/client you see that the “Subject” field is filled in randomly or not filled in at all, take the initiative into your own hands and try one of two scenarios:

— When answering, correctly change the content of the “Subject” field/fill it in yourself. If the recipient is attentive, perhaps this action will be enough to bring the correspondence back to normal. If the recipient still continues (most likely just out of habit) to ignore the contents of this field, use another script (read below):

— Write a letter to the addressee with a request/offer with approximately the following content: “Vasya, I really want our correspondence to be effective and for us to be able to resolve all our business issues as quickly as possible. I suggest that you immediately indicate the subject and content of the letter in the “Subject” field. I think this way we will significantly increase the effectiveness of our communication.”

Natasha took my advice. And now for the second month I have been enjoying the transparency and clarity of the letters I receive!

I wish the same pleasure to you, my dear readers!