Tenterden PTY Ltd
Writing Effective Business Correspondence
The standard of your businesses written correspondence plays a huge part in the image that your business portrays. Getting it WRONG can lead to creating an undesired image with your clients or even worse a misunderstanding about details and inflammatory situations where none need have existed. Getting it RIGHT can increase your credibility as a business with your customers, suppliers and business partners and avoid heated situations that might have occurred.
If you follow some basic rules, getting it right it isn't so hard and if you set it up right your business systems correctly with some easy to use letter templates it doesn't take very long either.
(AustralianBusinessSuccess.com)
Writing effective Business Correspondence letter follows the 7 C’s of communication:
Being consistent by having a formal strategy for handling written business communication is imperative. This strategy needs to cover:
Letter Structure
Header Block
Address Block
Salutation
Opening Paragraph
Body
Closing Paragraph
Signature Block
Enclosures
If you have attached or included any other documents in the letter mention them here.
(AustralianBusinessSuccess.com)
The standard of your businesses written correspondence plays a huge part in the image that your business portrays. Getting it WRONG can lead to creating an undesired image with your clients or even worse a misunderstanding about details and inflammatory situations where none need have existed. Getting it RIGHT can increase your credibility as a business with your customers, suppliers and business partners and avoid heated situations that might have occurred.
If you follow some basic rules, getting it right it isn't so hard and if you set it up right your business systems correctly with some easy to use letter templates it doesn't take very long either.
(AustralianBusinessSuccess.com)
Writing effective Business Correspondence letter follows the 7 C’s of communication:
- Clear
- Concise
- Concrete
- Correct
- Coherent
- Complete
- Courteous
Being consistent by having a formal strategy for handling written business communication is imperative. This strategy needs to cover:
- Meeting a standard turnaround time for correspondence
- Making sure that all outgoing corresponds answers the Why
- Correspondence is not bureaucratic, stuffy, defensive or too long
- Letters address every receiver as a client
- Correct Grammar and modern plain English is used
Letter Structure
Header Block
- Contains information about your business including: Business Name, ACN or ABN, Logo, address, contact details and maybe a quick line about your business (no more than ~10 words)
Address Block
- The name of the person or business that you are writing to must be precise. Include all titles etc (ring and check if you have to)
- Correct address must be used
- There is no punctuation in the address block
Salutation
- needs to be personal, good idea to avoid "Dear Sir/Madam" or "To whom it may concern"
- Title and Surname must be used
- There is no punctuation in the salutation
- If you know the person or have spoken with before etc., a nice personal touch is to include their name as Mr/s JA Bloggs and when you sign the letter strike out (with a single stroke of your pen) the JA Bloggs bit and hand write their first name.
Opening Paragraph
- in the case of a response refer to the date of the incoming correspondence
- contains a summary of the subject of the letter
Body
- contains all the information in clear, concise and logical Plain English
Closing Paragraph
- should be short, positive and helpful
- contain contact details for further information
Signature Block
- Contains your name and position
- leave 5 vertical spaces between "Yours Sincerely" and your Name to allow enough room for signature
Enclosures
If you have attached or included any other documents in the letter mention them here.
(AustralianBusinessSuccess.com)
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