Common Mistakes in Writing Business Letter

Recently, e-mail has become an increasingly important place in business correspondence. Its advantages are obvious: efficiency, availability, and ease of use. It should be remembered that electronic correspondence has its own nuances.

Receiving Emails

  1. Check the mail at least 2 times a day – in the morning and after dinner. Otherwise, you can stall the work of other people and delay the resolution of issues;
  2. If you received a letter, then someone sent it and for some reason did it. Therefore, the received letters must be read. Of course, spam is not considered here;
  3. If you are a manager, your workday should start with the launch of an email client that does not unload all day and automatically checks the mail.

The fields “To”, “Copy”, “Bcc”

You should understand, do not forget and correctly use the “To”, “Copy” and “Bcc” fields. Your actions on getting a letter or the recipient’s action depend on it.

  1. To whom. If you send a question, you are waiting for the answer from the addressee indicated in the “To” field. If you are a recipient, you should answer. That is, the letter and the information or questions contained therein are addressed directly to the recipient indicated in this field.
  2. “Copy”. Recipients in this field receive a letter for information or are “invited to witness”. The recipient in the copies should not generally reply to the letter. Moreover, it is considered polite, if there is such a need, to start with the phrase “I’m sorry to interfere.”
  3. “Hidden copy”. The fact of sending a letter to the person indicated in the “BCC” field does not recognize the main recipient or those standing in the copies.

Subject field

Do not leave this field blank. The people you correspond with can receive hundreds of letters a day and use this field to quickly assess the importance of the content of the letter. The subject of the letter should briefly reflect the subject of the letter. 

“Importance of writing”

If the letter contains information about urgent changes, the text of any contract or other information that you should pay attention first, use the importance of “high”, this will highlight the letter in the Inbox.

  • Do not use in vain “high” importance!
  • Personal letter to a business correspondent or letter with a funny and not a business picture or link, mark the importance of “low”.

Writing an answer

  1. Start with a greeting, it’s polite.
  2. Speak to a person in one language. This not only concerns the Russian /English language, but also the form of the text. An informal response to a formal letter is a lack of respect for the respondent and a demonstration of one’s own low culture.
  3. Do not use transit, except when sending emails from mobile devices.
  4. A business letter should be precise, specific and concise.