How to give legal effect to electronic correspondence. Business Email Rules

Andrey Grishchenko
Producer of game projects (external development) of 1C since 2003. He is engaged in the search for promising projects and teams, the organization of development and release. At 1C, he was and is responsible for several dozen projects, including No Time for Dragons, Stalingrad, XIII Century, games of the All-Wheel Drive and Pilot Brothers series. Now alleviates the birth pangs of "Standby: Sleep of Reason", which he is sure will be healthy and beautiful.

Dear reader!

This text was published in my dtf.blog back in April 2006. The number of distributed references to it and repeated requests to "republish" the note in the form of an article inspired me to this simple work. I thank all the people who commented on that blog - your useful comments and additions are taken into account. Special thanks to Dmitry Devishev (Nival Online).

In order to develop a culture of written communication, the material is proposed to be used freely (without attribution of authorship), including at trainings on business correspondence (including commercial ones).

***

You will laugh and say "this is elementary, Watson!". But you will not believe it, some of the respondents with whom I had to deal with at work do not comply with even a quarter of these norms! My respect for these people does not allow me to point out their mistakes "in person", so I will list them here.

All the elementary rules set out below relate primarily to business correspondence with your partners, colleagues, customers and contractors. Their use in personal correspondence is a private matter for everyone. However, following these rules in personal correspondence will only create a good impression about you.

Basics

• Please use the "Reply All" button when replying. This will keep copies of the recipients of the initial email so that your reply doesn't get past them. I strongly recommend that you hide the "Reply" button in the interface settings. If necessary, you can delete unwanted recipients "by hand".
• Do not leave the "Subject" field blank. The people you correspond with may receive hundreds of emails a day, and they use this field to quickly assess the importance and content of an email.
• Quote letters. Don't start your reply with a new email, click "Reply All" on a received email, and don't turn off the quote feature when replying and forwarding in your email client settings.

• When fully quoting (if your answer is to the entire letter as a whole), write the text of the answer at the BEGINNING of the letter, and not at the end, at the bottom.

Shall we continue?

Receiving letters

1. Letters received must be read. If you received a letter, it means that someone sent it for some reason (of course, spam is not considered here). If a person has letters marked as unread, and they are older than one day, he does not know how to work with mail. However, it is forgivable if:

o the person died or fell ill unexpectedly;

o working with mail is not part of his official duties (then he does not need a service e-mail).

2. If you are not a manager, check your mail at least 2 times a day: in the morning and in the afternoon. Failure to answer a production question from you can stall other people's work and delay the resolution of issues.

3. If you are a manager, your working day should start by launching an email client that does not unload all day and automatically checks for mail. Set up automatic mail delivery/receipt at least every 10 minutes (preferably 1-3 minutes).

4. You have received a letter. If you are very busy, immediately evaluate who it is from, the topic and skim through it - this will help you quickly decide whether the letter requires an urgent response or can wait a bit.

5. If you can, please respond immediately. This is the easiest and most efficient way to get things moving and not pile up mail.

6. If you understand that you won’t be able to answer within a day, it’s better to immediately write “I will answer within a couple of days” or at least “I will answer a little later.”

To, Cc, Bcc (To, CC, BCC) fields

7. It should be remembered that there are "To" ("To"), "CC" ("Copy") and "BCC" ("Bcc") fields. Your further actions (and the actions of correspondence partners) upon receipt of a letter depend on them:

o "To" ("To") - the letter and the information or questions contained in it are addressed to the recipient directly. If you send a question, you are waiting for a response from the addressee specified in the "To" field. If you are the recipient, then you must answer.

o "SS" ("Copy") - recipients standing in copies receive a letter "for information", for information, or are "invited to witness". The recipient in copies should not generally reply to the letter; moreover, it is considered polite if, if necessary, you begin with the phrase "I'm sorry to interfere."

o "BCC" ("Blind Copy") - a field for "palace intrigues". By specifying a recipient in this field, you “secretly” send this letter to him: the main recipient or those in the copies will not know about the fact of sending the letter to this person. It is also used for bulk mailing so that all recipients do not know your address book.

8. Please use the "Reply All" button when replying. This will keep copies of the recipients of the initial email and your reply will not miss them.

9. DO NOT delete from copies of the letter people added there by your correspondent. If you want to answer something personal so that other correspondents do not receive your answer, then delete everyone from the copies, except for the one who wrote the letter (yes, we never use the “Reply” button).

10. If there are more than two recipients in the received letter in the “To” field, this means that both of these correspondents or any of them must answer. Consider that BOTH should answer - if the letter is addressed to you and someone else, answer it too (even if it is an answer like “This question is definitely not for me, let such and such answer”).

11. In turn, it is strongly recommended NOT to include more than one recipient in the "To" field. On a letter sent to two, you will not receive an answer from either, since each will think that the other will answer. Not everyone has read this article.

12. Forwarding private correspondence to a mailing list without the consent of the participants in the correspondence is unethical!

Subject field

13. Don't leave it empty.

14. The subject of the letter should be short, but reflecting the main content, the subject of the letter. Headlines like "Question", "Hello!" or empty headlines betray you as a beginner who lacks basic business writing skills.

15. When you reply to one of several emails with different subjects, respond to the correct ones. Respond to the letter with the subject "Meeting on Tuesday, 18.04" about the meeting and the letter "Printing Materials" about the printing materials. This is due to the citation of previous correspondence (see the Letter Writing section below).

16. If you need to periodically send e-mail such as weekly reports, try to keep the header constant, or at least part of it should be constant so that the recipient can set up automatic rules (rules) for sorting such mail.

The importance of the letter ("Priority")

17. If the letter contains information about urgent changes, the text of the contract or other information that you need to pay attention to first of all - use the "high" importance, this will highlight the letter in the Inbox folder.

18. Do not use "high" importance in vain - "noisy" people are annoying, be more modest.

19. Mark a personal letter to a business correspondent or a letter with a funny picture or link as low.

Writing letters (answers)

20. Start with a greeting, it's polite. "Hey gria!" says that you are too lazy to write the name of a person. Even just "Andrey!" or "Good afternoon!" quite polite and sufficient.

21. Speak the same language with the person. This applies not only to the Russian/English language, but also to the form of the text. If you received a formal letter, an informal response to it will be disrespectful to the respondent and a demonstration of your own low culture. A formal response to an informal appeal is either a call to comply with the regulations, or it is simply required by corporate rules.

22. Try to always respond to the last letter in the chain of correspondence, and not to some intermediate one.

23. Do not use translitexcept when sending letters from conditions in which it is difficult to type text differently (for example, from a mobile phone or from a computer without a Russian keyboard layout).

24. If your mail client does not support Russian or corrupts encodings, then attach the reply text as an attachment.

25. A business letter should be precise, concise and specific:

o Accuracy - Specify the exact data you are referring to (date and subject of another email, meeting date, meeting agenda item, file name, link to a document on the web, etc.).

o Conciseness - some state on three pages what could be written in three sentences. He who thinks clearly, he clearly states, and your correspondent sees this.

o Specificity - it should be clear from the letter exactly WHAT EXACTLY is required from the recipient, what actions they want from him.

26. Business correspondence is not a place for epistolary exercises and not a place for expressing emotions. For this, there are forums, chat rooms and other means of electronic interpersonal communication. A concise business text is not dryness, but time saving and thought accuracy.

27. If the letter contains several questions, topics or tasks, structure them and separate them with paragraphs with or without numbering. A continuous "stream of thought" is difficult to read, while it is easy to miss the main point of the letter. Moreover, some people tend to immediately send a poorly structured letter to the wastebasket (although this is probably extremism).

28. Keep in mind that the answer to a request or task is "Let's do it!" incomplete “We will do it by such and such date”, “in so many days”, “after such and such an event” - these are more specific and accurate answers.

29. If the letter is worded in such a way that it can be answered simply with “ok”, then the answer is likely to be received much faster. For example, if there are several options for what to do, suggest some default option.

30. The text must not contain errors. Ochepyatki not scary, but if you write and write the word incorrectly in every letter, it becomes noticeable very quickly, and your “troika” with a minus in Russian becomes obvious (as well as speculative further conclusions about your general level of education and culture).

31. Try not to use html formatting of the email. Unfortunately, this format for writing letters is the default in Outlook, but when using it, especially when quoting (replies and forwarding), a lot of questions arise.

32. If you received a letter in html format, DO NOT change it to plain-text, this breaks the perception of information by the sender when receiving your response. The more important your correspondent is to you, the more important it is to maintain an adequate perception of him. You can cope with highlighting your answers in html quoting with color, or you can use the “Decrease indent” button on the html formatting panel (although there are capricious nuances).

33. Quote the text of the original letter. What do you think that would mean? I do not know either:

34. To: Andrey Grishchenko

35. Subject: Re: Re: Re: Question

36. OK!

Vasya

37. Never correct in quoting the text of another person! This is a kind of forged letter.

38. When quoting in full (if your answer is to the whole letter), write the text of the answer at the BEGINNING of the letter, and not at the end.

39. If you are replying point by point using a quotation, separate the quotation with blank lines ABOVE AND BOTTOM and use Capital Letters at the beginning of sentences. Try to find answers here:

40. > we offer to replace the logo with the attached one,

41. > since this one is very colorful in the background

42. did not find the logo in the attachment

43. > correct the inscription - instead of "fish" you need to write "slave"!

44. >otherwise we will be misunderstood

45. caption corrected, sorry

What is email? In today's business world, this is:

• Your face. It is with the help of email that you can create a positive image in the eyes of the counterparty or spoil 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 make your life much easier.
• Powerful distraction. The outside world is trying to get you, distract you and lead you astray through email.

From these positions and look at working with e-mail. Let's start simple.

Letter design

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

To whom. Copy. Hidden copy

Perhaps someone does not know, but "To" in Mozilla can be changed to "Cc" or "Bcc".

• To whom: we write the main recipient or several recipients separated by a semicolon.
• Copy: we write someone who should read the letter, but from whom we do not expect a reaction.
• Hidden copy: we write someone who should read the letter, but should remain unknown to the rest of the recipients of the letter. It is especially appropriate to use for mass mailings of business letters, such as notifications.

Not properly in the mass mailing, specify the recipients through the "Cc" or "To" fields. Several times a year I receive letters that list 50-90 recipients in the "Cc" field. There is a breach of privacy. Not all of your recipients need to know who else you are working with on a similar topic. It's good if they are people who know each other. And if there are competing companies on the list that do not know about each other? At a minimum, you need to be prepared for unnecessary explanations, and at the very least, to terminate cooperation with one of them. Do not do it this way.

Letter subject

Professional mailing services often write about the importance of the subject line (sometimes sensibly) in their corporate blogs. But there most often we are talking about sales letters, where the subject of the letter solves the problem “email should be opened”.

We discuss 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 the karma of numerous response letters, only with prefixes Re: or fwd, among which you will have to search for the desired letter on the topic.

Twenty letters is the volume of a one-day correspondence of a middle manager. I don’t talk about entrepreneurs and business owners at all, their number of letters sometimes exceeds 200 or more per day. So once again: do not send emails with an empty subject line.

So, how to correctly formulate the subject of the letter?

Mistake #1 : only the name of the company in the subject. For example, "Sky" and all. Firstly, you are probably not one of your company communicating with this counterparty. Secondly, such a topic does not bring any sense, because the name of your company is already visible from the address. Thirdly, guess what your own mailbox will look like with this approach to correspondence? Approximately like this.

Is it convenient to search on such topics?

Mistake #2 : flashy, selling title. It's great if you know how to write such headlines. 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 to writing texts for different occasions. For example, Maxim Ilyakhov, Alexander Amzin and other masters of the word have a lot of useful information. I advise you to read their articles at least to improve general literacy and improve the overall style of written speech.

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

A matter 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 have not talked to you in writing, from which I myself suffered and even did not sleep another night, thinking.” Very polite and very costly, both in terms of time to compose such an introduction, and in terms of the interlocutor's time to read it. Correspondence is business, remember? Not writing an epistolary genre for a competition and not a letter from his mother to Raskolnikov, but business correspondence.

We respect our time and the recipient!

Introducing yourself and recalling the circumstances of your acquaintance makes sense 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 the question of who to contact in a letter if there are several recipients. I recently wrote a letter addressed to three girls named Anna. Without any hesitation, I wrote "Hello, Anna" and did not take a steam bath. But that's not always the case.

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

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

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

For some reason, the default setting in Mozilla is "Set cursor after quoted text." I recommend changing it in the menu "Tools" → "Account Options" → "Compilation and Addressing". It must be so.

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 the month);
• and when we want something from the interlocutor. For example, so that he agrees on the attached invoice for payment.

As a rule, there are many more incentive 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. The call to action should be followed by a first name and be the last sentence of the letter.

Not properly : "Porfiry Petrovich, I know who killed the old woman."

Correctly : "Porfiry Petrovich, it was I who killed the old woman, please take action on my arrest, 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 email clients allow you to set up auto-substitution of a signature, for example, the classic "Respectfully, ...". In Mozilla, this is done in the menu "Tools" → "Account Options".

To write or not to write contacts in the signature is a personal matter for everyone. But if you are somehow 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 using the contacts from the signature.

Finally, one more feature of the body of the letter for those interlocutors who do not like (cannot, do not want, do 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 Friday, then I consider myself amnestied.” Of course, the deadline must be real (do not send the text from the example on Friday at 11:50). The recipient must be physically able to read and decide on your letter. Such a "silence" relieves you of responsibility for the non-response of the interlocutor. As always, the use of this chip must be approached wisely. If a person replies to your letters on time and regularly, such an ultimatum may, if not offend him, then strain him a little or lead to a decision not to answer the letter right now, but to make you wait for Friday.

Attachments

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.

Error : Huge investment size. We often receive emails with attachments up to 20 MB in size. 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 hang for several minutes in futile attempts to download the preview of this attachment. And God forbid the recipient try to read this letter on a smartphone ...

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

What if it exceeds?

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

And one more not quite obvious recommendation about investments - their name . It must be understandable and acceptable to the recipient. Once, in the company, we were preparing a commercial offer addressed to ... let it be Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. I received a letter from the manager with the draft CP for approval, and in the attachment there was a file with the name "DlyaFedi.docx". With the manager who sent me this, a dialogue took place with the following content:

Dear manager, are you personally ready to approach this respected person and call him Fyodor to his face?

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

Why did you call the attachment “For Fedi”? If I send it to him right now, do you think he will buy axes from us at this CP?

I was going to rename...

Why prepare a time bomb - a potential client's rejection - or create extra work for yourself by renaming a file? Why not immediately name the attachment correctly: "For Fedor Mikhailovich.docx" or even better - "KP_Sky_Axes.docx".

So, with email as a "face" more or less sorted out. Let's move on to e-mail as a productivity tool and talk about its distraction.

Working with letters

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

At a minimum, you need to turn off ALL mail notifications. 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 unviewed mailings - minus an hour or two of life.

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

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

Very simple. You yourself, consciously, allocate time for parsing mail, open your 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.

People often ask, what about response times and urgent emails? I answer: you do not have 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 through other channels - phone, SMS, Skype. Then you will consciously go into the mail client and process the urgent mail. All time management gurus (for example, Gleb Arkhangelsky with his "Time Drive") declare the standard for responding to emails up to 24 hours. This is a normal rule of good form - do not expect instant answers from the interlocutor by email. If there is an urgent letter, notify about it through faster communication channels.

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

What to do when we went into the mail and engaged in an 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, I have not met a single person who uses 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 will be grateful if GTD gurus will be noted in the comments, supplement or improve the described system.

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

What to do with emails in inbox? You need to go through each letter sequentially and delete it. Yes, just select and press Delete on the keyboard. If you can't force yourself to delete the email, you'll have to make a decision about what to do with it.

1. Can you answer it in three minutes? Does it need to be answered? Yes, you do, and the answer will take no more than three minutes, then answer right away.
2. You need to answer, but preparing the answer will take more than three minutes. If you use a task scheduler that allows you to convert 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 service Doit.im. 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.
3. After a quick response to a letter, turning it into a task, or just reading it, you need to decide what to do with this message next: delete it or send it to one of the folders for long-term storage.

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

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

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

Secondly, we use filters . Previously, I actively used filters that automatically forwarded letters to the appropriate folders based on the sender's address. For example, letters from a lawyer were moved to the "Lawyer" folder. I abandoned this approach for several reasons. First: letters from a lawyer in 99% of cases relate to a project or partner, which means they must be moved to the folder of this partner or project. Second: I decided to add awareness. You yourself have to decide where a particular letter should be stored, and it is more convenient to look for unprocessed messages in only one place - in the inbox. Now I use filters only for organizing 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, e-mail should take from 10 to 60 minutes a day, depending on the volume of correspondence.

Yes, and one more thing. Have you already turned off notifications for new emails? ;)

All the elementary rules set out below relate primarily to business correspondence with your partners, colleagues, customers and contractors. Their use in personal correspondence is a private matter for everyone. However, following these rules in personal correspondence will only create a good impression about you.

Business email ethics

If you suddenly do not want to read further, limit yourself to at least the following basic rules:

• Please use the "Reply All" button when replying. This will keep copies of the recipients of the initial email so that your reply doesn't get past them. I strongly recommend that you hide the "Reply" button in the interface settings. If necessary, you can delete unwanted recipients "by hand".
• Do not leave the "Subject" field blank. The people you correspond with may receive hundreds of emails a day, and they use this field to quickly assess the importance and content of an email.
• Quote letters. Don't start your reply with a new email, click "Reply All" on a received email, and don't turn off the quote feature when replying and forwarding in your email client settings.
• When quoted in full(if your answer is to the whole letter) write the text of the answer at the BEGINNING of the letter, and not at the end, at the bottom.

WILL WE CONTINUE?

Receiving letters

1. Letters received must be read. If you received a letter, it means that someone sent it for some reason (of course, spam is not considered here). If a person has letters marked as unread, and they are older than one day, he does not know how to work with mail. However, it is forgivable if:
   • the person died or fell ill unexpectedly;
   • working with mail is not part of his official duties (then he does not need a service e-mail).
2. If you are not a manager, check your mail at least 2 times a day: in the morning and in the afternoon. Failure to answer a production question from you can stall other people's work and delay the resolution of issues.
3. If you are a manager, your working day should start by launching an email client that does not unload all day and automatically checks for mail. Set up automatic mail delivery/receipt at least every 10 minutes (preferably 1-3 minutes).
4. You have received a letter. If you are very busy, immediately assess who it is from, the subject and skim through it - this will help you quickly decide whether the letter requires an urgent response or can wait a bit.
5. If you can, please respond immediately. This is the easiest and most efficient way to get things moving and not pile up mail.
6. If you understand that you won’t be able to answer within a day, it’s better to immediately write “I will answer within a couple of days” or at least “I will answer a little later.”

To, Cc, Bcc fields

1. It should be remembered that there are "To" ("To"), "CC" ("Copy") and "BCC" ("Bcc") fields. Your further actions (and the actions of correspondence partners) upon receipt of a letter depend on them:
   • "To" ("To") - the letter and the information or questions contained in it are addressed to the recipient directly. If you send a question, you are waiting for a response from the addressee specified in the "To" field. If you are the recipient, then you must answer.
   • "SS" ("Copy") - recipients standing in copies receive a letter "for information", for information, or are "invited to witness". The recipient in copies should not generally reply to the letter; moreover, it is considered polite if, if necessary, you begin with the phrase "I'm sorry to interfere."
   • "BCC" ("Blind Copy") - a field for "palace intrigues". By specifying a recipient in this field, you “secretly” send this letter to him: the main recipient or those in the copies will not know about the fact of sending the letter to this person. It is also used for bulk mailing so that all recipients do not know your address book.
2. Please use the "Reply All" button when replying. This will keep copies of the recipients of the initial email and your reply will not miss them.
3. DO NOT delete from copies of the letter people added there by your correspondent. If you want to answer something personal so that other correspondents do not receive your answer, then delete everyone from the copies, except for the one who wrote the letter (yes, we never use the “Reply” button).
4. If there are more than two recipients in the received letter in the “To” field, this means that both of these correspondents or any of them must answer. Consider that BOTH should answer - if the letter is addressed to you and someone else, answer it too (even if it is an answer like “This question is definitely not for me, let such and such answer”).
5. In turn, it is strongly recommended NOT to include more than one recipient in the "To" field. On a letter sent to two, you will not receive an answer from either, since each will think that the other will answer. Not everyone has read this article.
6. Forwarding private correspondence to a mailing list without the consent of the participants in the correspondence is unethical!

Subject field

1. Don't leave it empty.
2. The subject of the letter should be short, but reflecting the main content, the subject of the letter. Headlines like "Question", "Hello!" or empty headlines betray you as a beginner who lacks basic business writing skills.
3. When you reply to one of several emails with different subjects, respond to the correct ones. Respond to the letter with the subject "Meeting on Tuesday, 18.04" about the meeting and the letter "Printing Materials" about the printing materials. This is due to the citation of previous correspondence (see the Letter Writing section below).
4. If you need to periodically send e-mail such as weekly reports, try to keep the header constant, or at least part of it should be constant so that the recipient can set up automatic rules (rules) for sorting such mail.

Importance of writing

1. If the letter contains information about urgent changes, the text of the contract or other information that you need to pay attention to first of all - use the "high" importance, this will highlight the letter in the Inbox folder.
2. Do not use "high" importance in vain - "noisy" people are annoying, be more modest.
3. Mark a personal letter to a business correspondent or a letter with a funny picture or link as low.

Writing letters (answers)

1. Start with a greeting, it's polite. "Hey gria!" says that you are too lazy to write the name of a person. Even just "Andrey!" or "Good afternoon!" quite polite and sufficient.
2. Speak the same language with the person. This applies not only to the Russian/English language, but also to the form of the text. If you received a formal letter, an informal response to it will be disrespectful to the respondent and a demonstration of your own low culture. A formal response to an informal appeal is either a call to comply with the regulations, or it is simply required by corporate rules.
3. Try to always respond to the last letter in the chain of correspondence, and not to some intermediate one.
4. Do not use translit except when sending letters from conditions in which it is difficult to type text differently (for example, from a mobile phone or from a computer without a Russian keyboard layout).
5. If your mail client does not support Russian or corrupts encodings, then attach the reply text as an attachment.
6. A business letter should be precise, concise and specific:
   • Accuracy - Specify the exact data you are referring to (date and subject of another email, meeting date, meeting agenda item, file name, link to a document on the web, etc.).
   • Conciseness - some state on three pages what could be written in three sentences. He who thinks clearly, he clearly states, and your correspondent sees this.
   • Concreteness - it should be clear from the letter exactly WHAT EXACTLY is required from the recipient, what actions they want from him.
7. Business correspondence is not a place for epistolary exercises and not a place for expressing emotions. For this, there are forums, chat rooms and other means of electronic interpersonal communication. A concise business text is not dryness, but time saving and thought accuracy.
8. If the letter contains several questions, topics or tasks, structure them and separate them with paragraphs with or without numbering. A continuous "stream of thought" is difficult to read, while it is easy to miss the main point of the letter. Moreover, some people tend to immediately send a poorly structured letter to the wastebasket (although this is probably extremism).
9. Keep in mind that the answer to a request or task is "Let's do it!" incomplete “We will do it by such and such a date”, “in so many days”, “after such and such an event” - these are more specific and accurate answers.
10. If the letter is worded in such a way that it can be answered simply with “ok”, then the answer is likely to be received much faster. For example, if there are several options for what to do, suggest some default option.
11. The text must not contain errors. Ochepyatki not scary, but if you write and write the word incorrectly in every letter, it becomes noticeable very quickly, and your “troika” with a minus in Russian becomes obvious (as well as speculative further conclusions about your general level of education and culture).
12. Try not to use html formatting of the email. Unfortunately, this format for writing letters is the default in Outlook, but when using it, especially when quoting (replies and forwarding), a lot of questions arise.
13. If you received a letter in html format, DO NOT change it to plain-text, this breaks the perception of information by the sender when receiving your response. The more important your correspondent is to you, the more important it is to maintain an adequate perception of him. You can cope with highlighting your answers in html quoting with color, or you can use the “Decrease indent” button on the html formatting panel (although there are capricious nuances).
14. Quote the text of the original letter. What do you think that would mean? I don't know either: To: AIST is a creative bird Subject: Re: Re: Re: Question Ok! Vasya
15. Never correct in quoting the text of another person! This is a kind of forged letter.
16. When quoting in full (if your answer is to the whole letter), write the text of the answer at the BEGINNING of the letter, and not at the end.
17. If you are replying point by point using a quotation, separate the quotation with blank lines ABOVE AND BOTTOM and use Capital Letters at the beginning of sentences. Try to find answers here: > we suggest replacing the logo with the attached one, > since this very colorful one on the background did not find the logo in the attachment > correct the inscription - instead of "fish" you need to write "slave"! > otherwise we will be misunderstood, the inscription has been corrected, sorry > and the last...

    In recent years, e-mail has taken an increasing 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 letters

    1. check your mail at least 2 times a day - in the morning and in the afternoon. Otherwise, you can stop the work of other people and delay the resolution of issues;
    2. if you received a letter, it means that 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 working day should start by launching an email client that does not unload all day and automatically checks mail. Set up automatic delivery / receipt of mail at least every 10 (and preferably 2 - 3) minutes;
    4. if you are very busy and you have received a letter, evaluate who it is from, the subject and run through it with your eyes - this will help you quickly understand whether the letter requires an urgent response or can wait a little;
    5. The easiest and most effective way to move things forward and not collect mail piles is to respond to emails right away. Therefore, if you are not carrying on a conversation or other activity that does not tolerate interruption, respond to the letter immediately.

    To, Cc, Bcc fields

    You should understand, remember and correctly use the "To", "Cc" and "Bcc" fields. Your actions on receiving the letter or the actions of the recipient depend on this.

    1. "To whom". If you send a question, you are waiting for a response from the addressee specified in the "To" field. If you are the recipient, you must answer. That is, the letter and the information or questions contained in it are addressed directly to the recipient indicated in this field.
    2. "Copy". Recipients in this box are receiving a letter for information or are "invited witnesses". The recipient in copies should generally not respond to the letter. Moreover, it is considered polite, if necessary, to begin with the phrase “sorry to interfere.”
    3. "Hidden copy". The fact that the letter was sent to the person specified in the "Bcc" field will not be known by the main recipient or those in the copies. This field is also used for mass mailing so that all recipients do not know your address book.

    When answering, do not forget about the "Reply to all" button - this will save the recipients of the initial letter in copies and your answer will not pass by them. You can always remove unwanted recipients or add others.

    If there are more than two recipients in the received letter in the "To" field, this means that both of these correspondents or any of them must answer. Decide who should answer. However, be careful when sending letters containing more than two recipients in the "To" field: for a letter sent to everyone, you run the risk of not receiving a response from anyone.

    Subject field

    You should not leave this field empty. The people you correspond with may receive hundreds of emails a day and use this field to quickly assess the importance of email content.

    The subject of the letter should briefly reflect the subject of the letter. Headlines like "Question", "Hello!" or empty headlines betray you as a beginner, or lack of basic business writing skills.

    "The Importance of Writing"

    If the letter contains information about urgent changes, the text of any contract or other information that needs to be paid attention to first of all, use the value "high", this will highlight the letter in the Inbox folder.

    • Don't use "high" importance in vain!
    • A personal letter to a business correspondent or a letter with a funny and not businesslike picture or link, mark the importance as “low”.

    Writing a response

    1. Start with a greeting, it's polite.
    2. Speak the same language with the person. This applies not only to the Russian/English language, but also to the form of the text. An informal response to a formal letter is disrespectful to the respondent and a demonstration of one's own low culture.
    3. Do not use transliteration, except when sending emails from mobile devices. If your mail client does not support Russian or corrupts encodings, please attach the reply text in the attachment.
    4. A business letter should be precise, specific and concise.
       • Accuracy– Specify the exact data you are referring to (for example, meeting date, meeting agenda item, date and subject of another email, or file name).
       • concreteness- it should be clear from the letter exactly WHAT EXACTLY is required from the recipient.
       • Conciseness. Who thinks clearly, he clearly states, and your addressee sees it. Therefore, it is not necessary to state on three pages what could be written in three sentences. A concise business text is not dryness, but time saving and thought accuracy.
    5. If the letter contains several questions, topics or tasks, structure them and separate them. A continuous “stream of washing” is difficult to read and you can skip, in fact, the main question of the letter.
    6. Respond to the requests in the letter as accurately as possible. The answer to a request or task "Let's do it!" incomplete “We will do it by such and such a date”, “in such and such days”, “after such and such an event” is a more specific and accurate answer.
    7. The text must not contain errors! Misprints are not terrible, but if you write words incorrectly in each letter, it becomes noticeable very quickly and leaves a negative imprint on your image of a business partner.
    8. Never send a letter without reading what you have written! Read your answer and make sure everything is concise, precise, understandable, specific and free of grammatical errors. Check if all the necessary recipients are specified, if they are correctly placed in the "To" and "Cc" fields. Check for grammatical errors.
    9. Quote the text of the original letter.
    10. When fully quoting (if your answer to the whole letter) write the text of the answer at the BEGINNING of the letter, not at the end!
    11. If your answers are point by point, separate the quote with blank lines above and below.

    Attachments

    1. Do not attach files in EXE, PIF, BAT, COM, CMD, SCR formats to emails - many email clients or servers block such attachments tightly, and the recipient will never read them. Pack them into an archive (zip, rar) as in a shell and put them in this form.
    2. It is considered normal to send attachments up to 2-3 megabytes without warning. If you want to send a larger attachment, check with the correspondent whether such a file will pass through his server or whether it will fit in the mailbox.
    3. Refrain from attachments of dubious content: firstly, your correspondent may not share your tastes, and secondly, you can cause trouble to a person working in an organization where mail perusal is used.

    Electronic signature

    1. Its presence is useful (your contact information is available) and it is a good tone demonstrating your professionalism.
    2. The signature should not exceed 5-6 lines. It must include at least your first and last name. In addition, it is desirable to indicate your phone number, e-mail address, the name and physical address of the company, as well as the address of its website.
    3. Have two options for an electronic signature: for initiative (own) letters with full signature

    A business letter should have a clear structure, the advantages of which are:

    • saving your time and time of the addressee;
    • guarantee of reading the letter by the addressee and a correct understanding of its essence;
    • getting a clear, concise answer.

    Structure of a business letter

    Appeal

    It is located in the "header" of the letter and contains the position and full name of the addressee. For official business correspondence, the standard treatment is “Dear”, which is written with a capital letter and in the center of the sheet. And then a lot of options, depending on what they write and to whom. So, in Russia it is customary to address by name and patronymic, in companies with a Western corporate culture - just by name. If you know your partner personally, you can address it like this: "Dear Andrey Petrovich", if you don't know - "Dear Mr. Smirnov". By the way, when addressing a person, the word "mister" cannot be shortened to "mr." And in no case should you write “Dear Mr. Smirnov A.P.”. Either "Andrei Petrovich" or "Mr. Smirnov."

    If you do not write to royalty, representatives of religious denominations, presidents and members of parliaments of various countries, consider yourself lucky. For them, there are official conversion formulas, and for each rank there are special ones. Before sending such a letter, carefully check whether the selected appeal matches the status of the addressee. It is much easier to remember how to write to military personnel: “Dear Comrade Colonel,” even if this colonel is a woman. But the appeal "Ladies and gentlemen" is secular, and it is better to use it, say, for an invitation to the opening of a fashion salon. If you are inviting to a business presentation, for example, new drilling rigs, then according to established practice, the common address for everyone is “Dear Sirs”. In this case, it does not matter that women also work in this organization.

    Example:

    to CEO
    LLC "Concord"
    Dobrovolsky P.I.

    Dear Pavel Ilyich!
    or
    Dear Mr. Dobrovolsky!

    Preamble

    Composes the first paragraph of the letter, which sets out its purpose, the reason that prompted you to write it. After reading the preamble, the addressee should understand the essence of the letter. Example: I am writing to you to express my dissatisfaction with the quality of raw materials for the production of furniture that your company supplies to us, and I look forward to your actions aimed at quickly changing the situation for the better and compensating for the losses caused to us.

    Example: During the last month, starting from June 2 of the current year, 10-15% of each batch of your raw materials is defective. These facts were properly documented by our company's specialists. Copies of documents are attached to this letter. The losses of our company in connection with the receipt of defective raw materials amount to about 1 million rubles. We have been cooperating with Concord LLC for five years now, and so far we have had no reason to complain. In this situation, we insist on full compensation for our losses. If necessary, we are ready to conduct a joint examination of the rejected raw materials.

    Conclusion

    It is necessary for a brief summing up of the entire written and logical conclusion of the letter.

    Example: I am sure that you will understand this situation, and in the near future our cooperation will return to normal.

    Signature

    The letter ends with the signature (position + full name) of the sender, which is preceded by the standard polite form "Respectfully". Options are also possible: “Sincerely yours”, “With hope for productive cooperation”, “With gratitude for cooperation”, etc. When signing a letter, it is important to take into account the rank of the addressee and addressee. A letter addressed to the CEO must also be signed by the CEO, or at least his deputy. At the same time, the signature must correspond to its transcript: the situation when the deputy director puts a slash next to the director's surname and signs with his own name is unacceptable.

    Example: Sincerely yours, A.D. Kiselyov, General Director of the Zarya furniture factory

    P.S

    Postscript (P.S.) - postscript at the end of the letter after the signature - is rarely used in business correspondence. It serves to inform the addressee about an important event that happened after the writing of the letter, or to convey to him information that is indirectly related to the subject of the letter.

    Example 1: P.S. I inform you that the percentage of defects in the batch of raw materials received 3 hours ago has increased to 17%!

    Example 2: P.S. The head of our department for the reception of raw materials will meet with your specialists at your enterprise tomorrow at 14:00.

    Applications

    Applications are an optional addition to the main text of the letter and therefore are drawn up on separate sheets - each application on its own sheet. There are no rules for writing them.

    Standard phrases for business correspondence

    Notices

    • We inform you that the delay in shipment ... occurred due to ...
    • We would like to inform you that the management of the plant has decided…
    • We inform you that your proposal has been accepted.
    • We inform you that we…
    • We would like to inform you that…
    • We would like to inform you that unfortunately we cannot…

    Models of expressions explaining motives (The most common phrases at the beginning of a standard business letter)

    According to the protocol...
    • In order to enhance the security of property…
    • In response to your request...
    • In confirmation of our telephone conversation...
    • In confirmation of our agreement…
    • In order to provide technical assistance…
    • Due to the difficult situation...
    • In connection with the joint work…
    • According to the client's letter...

    If the author is a legal entity, then the actions are transferred:

    1. From the third person singular, for example:
       • The Zarya plant does not object ...
       • The joint Russian-English venture "Soyuz K" offers ...
       • The Naiv cooperative guarantees…
    2. From the third person plural, for example: The management and the trade union committee of the Zarya plant earnestly ask ...
    3. First person plural:
       • Please…
       • Confirming...
       • We inform…

    If the author is a natural person, then the actions are transferred:

    1. First person singular, for example:
       • For your information…
       • I beg…
       • I am informing you...
    2. First person plural, for example:
       • We approve...
       • We have received your telegram...
       • Congratulations...
       • We support…

    Request

    • Please check the progress of the work...
    • Please take action…
    • Please provide performance data...

    Sending documents or material values

    • Sending machine assembly drawings…
    • We send the documents you are interested in by registered post...
    • We send the contract signed on our part ...

    Confirmation

    • With gratitude we acknowledge receipt of your order and proceed to its implementation ...
    • We confirm receipt of specifications for…
    • The Zarya plant confirms the terms of equipment delivery…

    Sentence

    • We can offer you …
    • We invite you to purchase…
    • We can recommend you…

    Invitation

    • We invite you to take part in the discussion of the project ...
    • Please join the discussion...
    • We invite a representative of your company to visit…

    Refusal and rejection of the proposal (project)

    • The draft title list sent by you for construction projects in the amount of ... cannot be approved by us for the following reasons.
    • Your proposal (project) was rejected for the following reasons…

    Reminder

    • We remind you that according to the joint work plan, you must ...
    • We remind you that in accordance with… You must…
    • We remind you that your payment arrears amount to…
    • We remind you that the deadline for submission of the manuscript expires ...

    Guarantees

    • We guarantee payment.
    • We guarantee deadlines.
    • We guarantee the quality of products.

    Interpretation of one's own position

    • Our appeals on this issue did not lead to positive results.
    • We have no objections to the design.
    • We cannot deliver the goods to you… for the following reasons:…

    Interpretation of the actions of the other party

    • This delay can lead to...
    • It is completely inexplicable why your factory is delaying the dispatch of molds ...
    • Your promises are not kept.

    Final words

    • We hope that our request will be fulfilled.
    • We look forward to further cooperation.
    • With wishes of success.
    • We kindly ask you not to delay the answer.
    • Please excuse us for the delay in responding (for a mistake).

    Ethical standards of business correspondence

    Business correspondence, like any other form of human interaction, is based on a set of ethical rules and norms, the main of which is "CORRECTNESS AND RESPECT FOR THE PARTNER". Even if the purpose of the letter is to express a claim, its text should not contain rude words and incorrect expressions that may offend your counterparty. By taking care of maintaining the dignity of your addressee, you thus preserve your own.

    • start the message with a statement of refusal. First of all, it is necessary to state the motivation for the decision made and make it clear that under certain circumstances it is possible to return to the consideration of the issue;
    • impose on the addressee the expected outcome of the question, for example: “I ask you to study and resolve the issue positively” or “I ask you to approve this candidacy”
    • encourage the addressee to hurry when making a decision with the words “urgently”, “immediately”, “in a shorter time”. Better use the etiquette formulas “I ask you to answer by such and such a date”, “I earnestly ask you to immediately inform about your decision”
    • hint to the addressee at his imaginary inattention, incompetence, introducing into the text of the letter wording like “I suggest that you carefully study ...”.

    For the recipient of business letters, the mandatory requirements, from the point of view of ethical standards, are:

    • rejection of the response form, in which the letter of inquiry or letter of offer is returned to the author with the response information posted on them;
    • prompt and clear response to the sending organization. Delay or lack of response may be seen as uncooperative.

    Following the ethical standards of business correspondence listed above will not require you to perform a feat and will eventually become easy and familiar. Moreover, it will provide you with a reputation as a tactful person and even teach you how to turn opponents into allies.

    General rules for writing business letters

    In addition to structure, another important component of a competent business letter is its neat design.

    Information mail

    Information mail- This is a business letter that informs the addressee of information of an official nature.

    The length of an information letter ranges from one paragraph to several pages.

    As a rule, newsletters are signed by the head of the organization, and in the case of a mass mailing (for example, to all customers of the company), they may not contain a manual signature at all. Often, newsletters are of a typical nature.

    An inquiry- a business letter sent to obtain any official information or documents.

    In general, letters of inquiry are composed in the same way as letters of request. Letters of inquiry, as a rule, are signed by the head of the organization or an officially authorized official.

    The text of the request letter must contain the justification for the need to provide materials or information and the actual statement of the request.

    A letter of inquiry requires a letter of response.

    

    Response letter

    A response letter is a service letter that is written as a response to a letter of inquiry or a letter of request.

    The answer can be negative (letter of refusal) or positive.

    In the text of the response letter, the same language phrases and vocabulary that the author used in the initiative letter should be used, provided that the request letter was written correctly in linguistic terms.

    You should not include in the text of the response letter a link to the received letter (“To your letter dated _______ No. ___”).

    Information about the initiative letter is included in the registration number of the response letter. It is advisable to start the refusal letter with the rationale for the refusal: “In connection with ...”, since a negative answer must be justified, you cannot simply refuse the request without explanation.

    

    Confirmation letter

    A confirmation letter is an official letter in which the addressee confirms previously reached agreements, intentions, receipt of information, documents or other materials, etc.

    The key language formula of this type of letters is: “We confirm (receipt of documents, preliminary agreement, consent to ...)”.

    When confirming a preliminary agreement in the text of the letter, it is necessary to briefly state its essence.

    If the receipt of documents is confirmed, they should be named, etc. The confirmation letter may end with a request, wish, offer.

    

    Claim letter

    A complaint letter is an initiative business letter, the purpose of which is to express a claim or dissatisfaction to the addressee.

    In the conclusion, specific wishes or proposals for correcting the situation should be expressed.

    

    Letter of guarantee

    Letters of guarantee are intended to provide the addressee with written guarantees in order to confirm certain promises or conditions, intentions or actions of the author (the sending organization), one way or another affecting the interests of the addressee.

    Letters of guarantee are addressed to an organization or an individual. The word "guarantee" may not be mentioned at all in the text of the letter, however, the letter will remain a document containing a guarantee.

    The payment for the work performed, the timing of its completion, the quality of the work, the quality of the goods, the timing of its delivery, payment for the products received, etc. can be guaranteed. These aspects can make up the content of the whole letter or enter the text of the letter as its component.

    Letters of guarantee are emphatically legal in nature, corresponding in status to documents of a contractual nature. Most often, letters of guarantee are issued to confirm payment.

    In this case, it is obligatory to indicate the number of the contract and the invoice according to which the payment must be made.

    Letters of guarantee are distinguished by clarity, accuracy and unambiguous wording - since we are talking about providing guarantees to the addressee on behalf of and on behalf of an organization or official. It must indicate the type of operation to be performed.

    Such letters may begin with a statement of the essence of the guarantees provided to the addressee, for example: “I guarantee with this letter ...”.

    In other cases, a letter of guarantee may contain a statement of the reasons that caused the intention of the author to declare his readiness to provide certain guarantees to the addressee. In this case, the corresponding statement is formulated in the final sentence, for example: "We guarantee payment" or "I guarantee timely and full payment."

    A feature of this type of letter is the presence, along with the signature of the author (for example, the director of the organization), the signature of an official who is directly in charge of financial or other issues. If a letter of guarantee is sent as an obligation to pay for a purchase, service rendered, etc., then it must contain the bank details of the paying organization.

    The key phrase of a letter of guarantee may include the words and expressions:

    • We guarantee…
    • We guarantee that…
    • The Partner company guarantees…
    • Please send cash on delivery (type of guarantee) to our address ...
    • Guaranteed payment...
    • We hereby guarantee…

    

    Summary

    A resume is a type of business letter aimed at the most complete and profitable presentation of a specialist to an employer.

    When compiling a resume, you should strictly follow a number of rules:

    1. introduce yourself
    2. Education
    3. work experience
    4. Do I need to specify the desired salary level?
    5. Do I need to provide additional information about myself?
    6. Are personal details required?
    7. Tailor your resume to the requirements of the employer
    8. Attitude towards travel
    9. Availability of recommendations
    10. Transmittal letter

    There is not and cannot be a single resume for all occasions, which could be sent to all firms without changes.

    Each time, you should first think about what qualities will be valued in a new job, and modify the resume in accordance with them. The information provided in the resume must be reliable. Don't leave blank spots on your resume.

    And most importantly - the summary should be short: no more than one - one and a half pages. Your ability to clearly formulate, briefly state is an indicator of a high level of general culture.

    The presence of a photo on the resume is welcome.

    

    1. Confirmation of the fact and terms of work in the organization, brief information about the positions held and duties performed (for a letter of recommendation from a private person, this paragraph indicates during what period of time and in what capacity the author of the letter knows the recommended one). From the list of duties, the qualifications of the recommended person should be visible. If the recommended person occupied various positions, then data on the positions held and the duties performed are indicated for each time interval. Example: Sidorov Vladimir Alexandrovich worked in the company "Vector" from March 12, 1998 to March 16, 2002, including from March 12, 1998 to March 16, 2002 - as a manager of the trade and purchasing department, from March 17 to November 25, 2002 - in the position of senior manager of the same department. His duties as a manager were to organize the supply of components, as a senior manager - to organize the interaction between suppliers of components and production.
    2. A brief description of the professional, business and personal qualities of the recommended and the successes he has achieved during his work in the organization. You should abandon such general words as reliable, competent, conscientious, etc., and focus on specific facts that characterize the recommended in terms of his professional qualities, the ability to cope with certain tasks. Here you can focus on categories such as level knowledge and diligence in the performance of basic duties, the ability to cope with non-standard tasks, ingenuity, initiative, learning ability, ability to adapt in various situations, emotional stability, leadership qualities.Here you can give an approximate comparison of the recommended work with the work of his colleagues, indicate the most significant achievements , projects developed and implemented by him personally. Example: Independently mastered the software, independently and successfully conducted business negotiations, effectively managed subordinates, etc.
    3. Reasons for changing the place of work (leaving the organization, moving to another place). This may be a change in the profile of the organization, the closure of a unit, personnel changes in the organization, a change of residence, etc.
    4. Conclusions. A brief and specific assessment of the competence, business qualities of the recommended person, his creative potential and career opportunities. Recommendations for taking a specific position or positions (in some cases it is desirable to indicate here the degree to which you recommend a person for the position you are looking for: unconditionally, strongly, with some reservations, do not recommend). Example: Sidorov Vladimir Alexandrovich is fluent in technology… (has extensive experience in working with server software… or… can independently work with corporate clients… etc.). I believe that Mr. Sidorov can effectively fulfill the duties of the head of the department, working as the head of the department, deputy head of the computer department of a medium-sized enterprise.
    5. Contact details of the person signing the letter. This point is especially relevant for letters of recommendation drawn up by individuals, since it is quite possible that a new employer, after reading a letter of recommendation, will want to clarify some details.

    

    Press release

    A press release is an informational message for the media, the task of which is to draw attention to a certain event (has happened or is to come) in order to maximize coverage of this event in the media.

    Press releases are compiled and distributed by the press services of companies and organizations and have certain writing rules:

    • the heading of the document should contain the word "Press release" and the date of its distribution;
    • the title of the press release should clearly reflect its theme, the message of the informational message;
    • in more detail, the essence of the heading of the press release can be disclosed in the subheading (at the same time, its presence is optional);
    • the first paragraph of the press release must contain the following information: what, where and when it happened (will happen);
    • The volume of the press release should not exceed one and a half pages of typewritten text. In this case, it is desirable to limit one page, including the signature and headers and footers of the organization's letterhead;
    • the press release may include quotes from news makers - responsible speakers of the organization;
    • a press release is written on the organization's letterhead;
    • The signature to the press release should contain the full name of the contact person who can provide additional information on the subject of the press release, and his contact details: telephone (preferably mobile), e-mail, ICQ number.

    

    Letter of congratulation

    The "Congratulations" format belongs to the category of personal business correspondence.

    It is drawn up on a greeting letterhead or postcard, and when it is compiled, a creative approach can and should prevail. This applies to both the text of the letter and its design.

    Congratulations can be personal (happy birthday) or mass (for example, Happy New Year).

    In the first case, the address to the addressee should be personal - by name and patronymic; in the second case, it can be general, for example, "Dear friends!".

    Moreover, in both cases, the sender must personally sign the congratulations (when sending mass congratulations, a facsimile is used).

    Personal congratulations

    

    Mass congratulations

    

    Invitation letter

    The "Invitation" format belongs to the category of personal business correspondence.

    It is issued on an official letterhead or postcard and is intended to notify the addressee of a certain solemn event that he is invited to attend.

    The invitation must contain information about the place and time of the event, as well as its name.

    The invitation must indicate the acceptable dress code (for example, black and tie), as well as the number of people covered by the invitation.

    As a rule, the invitation is nominal, but during mass events it can be depersonalized.

    Personal invitation

    

    Bulk Invite

    

    Thank you letter

    The "Thanks" format belongs to the category of personal business correspondence and aims to express gratitude to the addressee.

    As a rule, thanks are issued on the official letterhead of the organization, but can be issued as a postcard.

    The text of the letter of thanks is written in a concise, friendly-formal style with reference to the event that prompted the sender to express his gratitude to the addressee. If desired, other merits of the addressee can also be listed. Gratitude is certified by the sender's personal signature and, in some cases, by the seal of the organization.

    Example: Message from the Prime Minister of Great Britain to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (April 25, 1942) “I am very grateful to you for your message of April 23. Of course, we will welcome the visit of Mr. Molotov, with whom, I am sure, we will be able to do a lot of useful work. I am very glad that you find it possible to allow this visit, which, I am sure, will be very valuable.

    

    condolence letter

    The “Condolences” format belongs to the category of personal business correspondence and aims to express empathy and support to the addressee about some other sad event or loss.

    When writing condolences, it is very important to choose the right sincere words that can really support the addressee in his grief.

    At the same time, it is important to express your feelings and experiences regarding what happened.

    Condolences are issued in a discreet, correct style on an official letterhead or a special postcard and certified by the sender's personal signature.

    

    Business letter- a document used for communication, transmission of information over a distance between two correspondents, who can be both legal entities and individuals.

    A manager or a management specialist by the nature of his activity needs to write a lot of business letters.

    Business letters include testimonials, resumes, letters of recommendation, reminder and gratitude letters, letters of invitation to interviews or presentations, rejection letters, statements of claim, complaints, etc.

    How to write a business letter

    • paper for a business letter should be of good quality, absolutely clean, neatly cut;
    • it is desirable that the form of a business letter be with the emblem of the organization, its full name, postal and telegraphic address, telephone, fax, e-mail address and bank details;
    • official business letters are printed on the front side of the sheet, without blots; all pages except the first are numbered with Arabic numerals;
    • the width of the margin on the left side of the sheet must be at least 2 cm, the paragraph begins with a red line with a five-spaced indent from the left edge of the line; the text is printed in one and a half - two intervals; it is desirable to avoid word wrapping;
    • in the upper right corner of a business letter, under the address of the sending organization, the date is put, preferably in full (for example, January 2, 2007);
    • the name of the organization or the surname and address of the person where the business letter is sent is put on the left side of the sheet;
    • below, from the edge of the line or in the center of the sheet, a polite appeal is written; for example, "Dear Ivan Ivanovich"; after the treatment, a comma is required, but an exclamation mark is often put to start the next phrase with a red line and with a capital letter;
    • the business letter ends with words of gratitude for cooperation and an expression of hope for its continuation;
    • the signature is placed on the right side of the sheet, after the final phrase of courtesy, for example, "With respect ...", the name of the signer is printed under his handwritten signature;
    • resolutions on all types of incoming correspondence should be done in pencil or on separate sheets; a business letter is folded with the text inside, and the most important business letters are not folded, for which they are sent in large thick envelopes;
    • a telegraph request should be answered within 3 days, a business letter - 10; if the request requires detailed consideration, then within 3 days you should inform that the business letter has been taken into account and give a final answer within 30 days.
    • accuracy and clarity of presentation of thoughts - short words, short phrases, short paragraphs
    • maximum accessibility of the text for understanding, the use of simple phrases that accurately and unambiguously express the essence
    • literacy
    • correctness

    Communication by e-mail is an integral part of the work of any modern office worker. And accountants are no exception. How to conduct correspondence in such a way that business communication is productive, emotionally comfortable and extremely ethical? I offer readers some practical advice.

    TIP 1. Do not neglect in your letters a personal appeal to the addressee

    Thus, you will demonstrate your attention to the personality of a person. If the letter is written to a specific recipient, then the absence of a personal appeal in it looks incorrect and impolite.

    When you write one of the first letters to the addressee, the question often arises: how best to address him - just by name or by name and patronymic? In this case, you need to look at what is written in the signature that ends the letter of this person to you. If the name is indicated there (without patronymic), for example "Svetlana Kotova" then feel free to call by name. And if the signature says "Svetlana Vasilievna Kotova, chief accountant of Trenzor LLC", then you need to address the addressee accordingly. In any case, the second option is extremely correct, and therefore win-win.

    I do not recommend focusing on the information in the "From" field. Indeed, often it is initially filled not by the owner of the email address, but by the IT specialist of the company when setting up email.

    By the way, when addressing a business partner or client, I strongly advise you not to use the short form of the name (“Sash” instead of “Sasha”, “An” instead of “Anya”), no matter how democratic the writing style is and no matter how long your correspondence. What sounds familiar in oral speech, in written language looks too plain.

    TIP 2. Pay special attention to the shape of the greeting

    Do not use the phrase "Good day!". Even if you are guided by the good intention of matching the time zone of the addressee, this phrase sounds tasteless, I would even say vulgar. It is better to use neutral options: "Hello...", "Good afternoon...". And of course, add the name of the addressee to the greeting, if you know it. For me personally, for example, it is much more pleasant instead of a faceless "Hello!" get personal "Hello, Tamara!".

    Remember that in this way you greatly save the addressee's time. After all, he will be able to immediately assess the content of the received letter and quickly decide on its priority and importance.

    The wording of the topic should be brief, but at the same time accurately reflect the subject of the correspondence. For example, “Agreement, invoice, act from Alfa LLC” instead of Documents. As aspects of the issue under discussion change, add clarification to the topic. For example, “Cooperation with Perm” → “Cooperation with Perm. Date of negotiations” → “Cooperation with Perm. Draft agreement".

    If during the correspondence you see that the “Subject” field is filled in by your recipient arbitrarily or not filled in at all, take the initiative in your own hands and try one of two scenarios.

    SCENARIO 1. When answering, fill in the "Subject" field yourself. If the addressee is attentive, perhaps this will already be enough to bring your correspondence into an adequate form.

    SCENARIO 2. If the recipient continues to ignore filling in the "Subject" field, write him a letter with the following content: “Alla, I suggest that you immediately indicate the subject of the letter in the “Subject” field. I think this way we will significantly increase the effectiveness of our communication.”.

    TIP 4. Pay attention to the "To" and "Cc" fields

    You need to clearly understand the purpose of these fields generally accepted in the business environment:

    • <если>in the “To” field only you appear - this means that the sender of the letter is waiting for a response from you to his question or request;
    • <если>there are several recipients in the field - the sender is waiting for a response from each or from any of the recipients. In this case, when replying, save the list of recipients set by the sender using the "Reply to all" function (of course, provided that you intentionally do not want to reply only to the author of the letter, hiding the essence of your answer from the rest of the participants in the correspondence);
    • <если>your name appears in the "Copy" field - the sender wants you to be aware of the issue, while he does not expect an answer from you. So, you should not enter into correspondence on this issue. If you still decide to do this, then it will be a sign of good form to start writing one of the phrases: “If possible, I would like to join the discussion of this issue ...”, "Let me give you my opinion...".

    As far as the BCC field is concerned, it is the most controversial e-mail tool from a business ethics point of view. Sometimes it is perceived as a tool of almost secret surveillance and information. After all, the recipients placed in the "Bcc" are not visible to other recipients. In some, usually large companies, especially scrupulous in matters of ethics, it is strictly forbidden to use this field in corporate correspondence, except for mass mailings. But in most companies they use it, observing the following rules:

    • sending a letter with the "Bcc" field filled in implies that the author of the letter has notified the hidden recipients (or is going to do so) about the reason and purpose of such a form of message;
    • the hidden addressee does not need to enter into correspondence.

    At trainings, I am often asked the question: are there any generally accepted standards regarding the time during which it is necessary to respond to a letter from a client or colleague? But there is no universal answer to it.

    

    If we talk about internal correspondence, everything here is determined by the speed and rhythm of the life of the company itself. There are firms in which a delay in responding for more than an hour and a half is considered bad manners. And somewhere the answer within a day is in the order of things.

    As a general rule, the most acceptable response time to a letter is within 2-3 hours. This is the so-called comfortable waiting time, when the sender is waiting for an answer and does not experience internal discomfort from the silence of his addressee.

    But what if, having received and read the letter, you understand that you cannot give a full answer to it within 24 hours? Then, according to the rules of good manners, notify the sender of your receipt of the letter and the approximate timing of the response to it. For example: “Hello, Sergey Vasilyevich! Your letter has been received. I will answer in the next couple of days” or “Andrey, I received the letter. Thank you! I need more information to answer. I'll try to answer as soon as possible....

    TIP 6. Follow the basic rules for submitting information in a letter

    There are not many of them:

    • when reading a letter, the most comfortable volume fits "on one screen", maximum - on an A4 page;
    • the size of the sent attachments should not exceed 3 MB. Larger files can lead to "hanging" mail at the addressee;
    • when "packing" attachments, use universal zip or rar encodings. Other extensions may be blocked or cut off in transit and create problems for the recipient;
    • never start a reply as a new email (without saving the history of the correspondence). Otherwise, the recipient will be forced to spend time looking for the original message;
    • write in a language that is most understandable to the addressee. Many people wonder if it is appropriate to use professional or corporate vocabulary, slang, abbreviations and anglicisms.

    In each case, this must be decided separately.

    So, intra-corporate correspondence in a company is almost always replete with slang and abbreviations: they are familiar and understandable to all participants and save time. But you need to be careful when using them in correspondence with counterparties.

    There was such a case in my practice. A colleague was preparing materials for a publishing house and in the last letter she wrote: “Masha, please send all your asap materials”. Masha decided that this was a designation of a format unknown to her, into which the text needed to be translated. She killed a lot of time, by hook or by crook, figuring out how to satisfy the publisher's request. Imagine Machine's annoyance when, 2 days later, she learns that the cryptic "asap" is an abbreviation of the widely used in the English-speaking environment "as soon as possible" ("as soon as possible"). But Masha could send materials within half an hour from the moment she received the request!

    TIP 7. End each letter with a block of your signature and your contacts

    Regardless of how closely you know the addressee and how long your correspondence has been going on, each of your letters should contain a block consisting of a signature and contact information. It is an integral part of the culture of business communication.

    The block must contain:

    • your first and last name. There is no need to use abbreviations. Instead of “T.L. Vorotyntsev" in my signature I indicate "Tamara Leonidovna Vorotyntseva" or "Tamara Vorotyntseva" so that the addressee understands how to contact me in a response letter;
    • your position. This gives the addressee the opportunity to understand the boundaries of your authority and professional competence in resolving issues;
    • contact details (phone, email, company name, website). So you will provide the addressee with the possibility of additional operational communication if necessary.

    I would like to add to all that has been said: your e-mails are the very clothes by which they are greeted. In other words, observing the etiquette of business correspondence, you will make the most pleasant impression on your addressee in absentia.