All the elementary rules outlined below relate primarily to business correspondence with your partners, colleagues, customers and performers. Using them in personal correspondence is a private matter for everyone. However, following these rules in personal correspondence will only create a good impression of you.
Ethics in business email
If you suddenly do not want to read further, limit yourself to at least the following basic rules:
- When answering, use the “Reply All” button. This will cc the recipients of the initial email so your reply doesn't get past them. I strongly recommend hiding the “Reply” button in the interface settings. If necessary, you can delete unwanted recipients manually.
- 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 the email.
- Quote letters. Don't start your reply with a new email, click "Reply All" on the received email, and don't disable the quote when replying and forwarding feature in your email client settings.
- With full citation(if your answer is to the entire letter) write the text of the answer at the BEGINNING of the letter, and not at the end, below.
SHALL WE CONTINUE?
Receiving letters
- The 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, this can be forgiven if:
- the person died or unexpectedly fell ill;
- working with mail is not part of his job responsibilities (then he has no need for a service e-mail).
- If you are not a manager, check your email at least 2 times a day: in the morning and in the afternoon. Not answering a production question from you can stall other people's work and delay the resolution of issues.
- If you are a manager, your workday should start by launching an email client that stays on all day and automatically checks your email. Set up automatic mail delivery/receipt at least every 10 minutes (preferably 1-3 minutes).
- You have received a letter. If you are very busy, immediately assess who it is from, the subject and skim it - this will help you quickly decide whether the letter requires an urgent response or can wait a bit.
- If you can, please respond immediately. This is the easiest and most effective way to move things along and not collect mail.
- If you understand that you cannot answer within 24 hours, it is better to immediately write “I will answer within a couple of days” or at least “I will answer a little later.”
Fields “To”, “Cc”, “Bcc”
- Remember that there are To, CC, and BCC fields. Your further actions (and the actions of your correspondence partners) upon receiving the letter depend on them:
- “To” (“To”) - the letter and the information or questions contained in it are addressed directly to the recipient. If you send a question, you expect a response from the addressee specified in the “To” field. If you are the recipient, then you should be the one to respond.
- “CC” (“Copy”) - recipients appearing in copies receive a letter “for your information”, for information or are “invited to witness”. The recipient of the copies should not generally respond to the letter; Moreover, it is considered polite if, if there is such a need, you begin with the phrase “Sorry for interfering.”
- “BCC” (“Blind Copy”) is a field for “palace intrigues.” By indicating a recipient in this field, you “secretly” send this letter to him: the fact that the letter was sent to this person will not be known to the main recipient or those in the copies. It is also used for mass mailing so that your address book is not known to all recipients.
- When answering, use the “Reply All” button. This will save a copy to the recipients of the initial email so your response will not pass them by.
- DO NOT remove people added by your correspondent from copies of the letter. If you want to answer something personal so that other correspondents do not receive your answer, then delete everyone from the copies except the one who wrote the letter (yes, we never use the “Reply” button).
- If there are more than two recipients in the “To” field in a letter received, this means that both of these correspondents or any of them must respond. Consider that BOTH should answer - if the letter is addressed to you and someone else, answer too (even if it is an answer like “This question is definitely not for me, let so-and-so answer”).
- In turn, it is highly recommended NOT to include more than one addressee in the “To” field. To a letter sent to two, you will not receive an answer from either, since each will think that the other will answer. Not everyone read this article.
- Forwarding private correspondence to a mailing list without the consent of the participants in the correspondence is unethical!
Subject field
- Don't leave it blank.
- The subject line of the letter should be brief, but reflecting the main content and topic of the letter. Titles like “Question”, “Hello!” or empty headings reveal that you are a beginner who lacks basic business writing skills.
- When you respond to one of several emails with different subject lines, respond to the correct ones. Reply to the letter with the subject “Meeting on Tuesday, April 18” about the meeting and to the letter “Printing Materials” about printing materials. This involves quoting previous correspondence (see Letter Writing section below).
- If you need to periodically send e-mails 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 for sorting such mail.
The importance of writing
- If the letter contains information about urgent changes, the text of the contract or other information that you need to pay attention to first, use the “high” importance, this will highlight the letter in the inbox.
- Do not use “high” importance in vain - “noisy” people are annoying, be more modest.
- For a personal letter to a business correspondent or a letter with a funny picture or link, mark the importance as “low.”
Writing letters (responses)
- Start with a greeting, it's polite. "Hello, Gria!" indicates that you are too lazy to write the person’s name. Even just “Andrey!” or “Good afternoon!” quite polite and sufficient.
- 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 receive 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 regulations, or this is simply required by corporate rules.
- Try to always respond to the last letter in the correspondence chain, and not to some intermediate one.
- Ne ispolzuyte translit except for cases of 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).
- If your email client does not support the Russian language or spoils the encodings, then attach the text of the response as an attachment.
- A business letter should be precise, concise and specific:
- Accuracy - be sure to include the exact details you are referring to (date and subject of another email, meeting date, meeting agenda item, file name, link to online document, etc.).
- Conciseness - some people present in three pages what could be written in three sentences. He who thinks clearly speaks clearly, and your correspondent sees this.
- Specificity - from the letter it should be clear exactly WHAT EXACTLY is required from the recipient, what actions they want from him.
- Business correspondence is not a place for exercises in the epistolary genre and not a place for expressing emotions. For this purpose, there are forums, chats and other means of electronic interpersonal communication. A laconic business text is not dryness, but time saving and precision of thought.
- If the letter contains several questions, topics or tasks, structure them and separate them into paragraphs with or without numbering. A continuous “stream of thought” is difficult to read, and it is easy to miss the main point of the letter. Moreover, some people tend to immediately throw a poorly structured letter into the trash bin (although this is probably extremism).
- Keep in mind that the answer to a request or task is “Let’s do it!” incomplete “We’ll do it by such and such a date,” “in so many days,” “after such and such an event” are more definite and accurate answers.
- If the letter is worded in such a way that it can be answered with a simple “ok”, then the answer will most likely be received much faster. For example, if there are several options for what to do, offer some default option.
- The text must not contain errors. Ochepyatki are not scary, but if you write and spell a word incorrectly in every letter, it becomes noticeable very quickly, and your “C” with a minus in Russian becomes obvious (as well as speculative further conclusions about your general level of education and culture).
- Try not to use html formatting of the letter. Unfortunately, this format for writing letters is the default in Outlook, but when using it, especially when quoting (replying and forwarding), a lot of questions arise.
- If you received a letter in html format, DO NOT change it to plain text, this breaks the sender’s perception of information 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 handle highlighting your answers in html citations using color, or you can also use the “Reduce indentation” button on the html formatting panel (although there are capricious nuances there).
- Quote the text of the original letter. What do you think this would mean? I don’t know either: To: AIST is a creative bird Subject: Re: Re: Re: Question Ok! Vasya
- Never edit another person's text when quoting it! This is a kind of forgery of letters.
- When quoting in full (if your response is to the entire letter), write the text of the response at the BEGINNING of the letter, not at the end.
- If you are answering point by point using a quotation, separate the quotation with blank lines at the TOP and BOTTOM and use Capital Letters at the beginning of sentences. Try to find the answers here: > we suggest replacing the logo with the one included, > since this very colorful background did not find the logo in the attachment > correct the inscription - instead of “fish” you should write “slave”! > otherwise we will be misunderstood, the inscription has been corrected, sorry > and the last thing...
What is email? In the modern 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 working tool. A lot of communication with the outside world takes place via email. Therefore, if you are proficient in this instrument, you can make your life a lot easier.
- A powerful distraction. The outside world is trying to get at you, distract you and lead you astray through email.
From this perspective, let’s look at working with email. Let's start with something simple.
Formatting a letter
I use the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, so I will use it as an example. Let's create a new letter and go from top to bottom through the list of fields.
To whom. Copy. Hidden copy
Some may 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 to someone who should read the letter, but from whom we do not expect a reaction.
- Hidden copy: we are writing to someone who should read the letter, but should remain unknown to the other recipients of the letter. It is especially appropriate to use for mass mailing of business letters, such as notifications.
Wrong in mass mailings, indicate recipients using the “Copy” or “To” fields. Several times a year I receive letters that list 50–90 recipients in the “Cc” field. There is a violation of privacy. Not all of your recipients need to know who else you are working with on a similar topic. It’s good if these are people who know each other. What if there are competing companies on the list that don’t know about each other? At a minimum, you need to be prepared for unnecessary explanations, and at maximum, to terminate cooperation with one of them. Do not do it this way.
Letter subject
Professional mailing services often write (sometimes sensibly) about the importance of the email subject line on their corporate blogs. But most often we are talking about sales letters, where the subject of the letter solves the problem “the email should be opened.”
We are discussing 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 karma of numerous response letters, only with prefixes Re: or FWD, among which you will have to look for the desired letter on the topic.
Twenty letters is the volume of one-day correspondence for a middle manager. I’m not talking about entrepreneurs and business owners at all; their number of letters sometimes goes off scale at 200 or more per day. Therefore once again: do not send emails with an empty subject.
So, how to formulate the subject line of an email correctly?
Mistake #1 : Only the company name in the subject. For example, “Sky” and that’s it. Firstly, you are probably not the only one from your company communicating with this counterparty. Secondly, such a topic does not bring any meaning, 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? Something like this.
Is it convenient to search on such topics?
Mistake #2 : flashy, selling headline. 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 a business email subject line: not to sell, but to provide identification and search.
Text of the letter
There are many writing guides for different occasions. For example, Maxim Ilyakhov, Alexander Amzin and other masters of words 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 make several decisions sequentially.
A matter of politeness . At the beginning of the letter, you can blur into pleasantries or even tenderness in the spirit of “My dear Rodya, it’s been more than two months since I talked to you in writing, from which I myself suffered and even didn’t sleep some nights, thinking.” Very polite and very costly, both in terms of time to write such an introduction, and in terms of the interlocutor’s time to read it. Correspondence is business, remember? Not an essay in the epistolary genre for a competition or a letter to Raskolnikov’s mother, but business correspondence.
We respect our time and the recipient's!
It only makes sense to introduce yourself and recall the circumstances of your acquaintance in the first letter sent after a fleeting meeting at an exhibition. If this is a continuation of cooperation or ongoing correspondence, in the first letter of the day we write: “Hello, Ivan”, in the second and subsequent ones: “Ivan, ...”.
Appeal . I have always been concerned about the question of who to address in a letter if there are several recipients. Recently I wrote a letter addressed to three girls named Anna. Without any doubt, I wrote “Hello, Anna” and didn’t worry. But such luck is not always the case.
What if there are three or even seven recipients and they do not have the same name? You can list them 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 of addressing by name the person in the “To” field. And don’t contact those in the copy at all. This rule also allows you to more accurately determine (one!) the addressee of the letter and the purpose of this letter.
Citation . Often correspondence is a chain of letters with questions and answers - in a word, a dialogue. It is considered good practice not to delete the correspondence history and write your response at the top of the quoted text, so that when you return to this correspondence a week later, you can easily read the dialogue from top to bottom, descending by date.
For some reason, the default setting in Mozilla is “Place cursor after quoted text.” I recommend changing it in the “Tools” → “Account Options” → “Composing and Addressing” menu. It must be so.
Purpose of the letter . There are two types of business letters:
- 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 approves the attached invoice for payment.
As a rule, there are many times more encouraging letters than reporting letters. 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 accompanied by a name and be the last sentence in the letter.
Wrong : “Porfiry Petrovich, I know who hacked the old woman to death.”
Right : “Porfiry Petrovich, it was I who hacked the old woman to death, please take measures to arrest me, I’m tired of suffering!”
Why should the correspondent think for you what to do with this letter? After all, he may make the wrong decision.
Signature in the text . She must be. Moreover, all email clients allow you to configure automatic signature substitution, for example the classic “Sincerely, …”. In Mozilla, this is done in the “Tools” → “Account Options” menu.
Whether or not to write contacts in the signature is a personal matter for everyone. But if you are in any way connected with sales, be sure to write. Even if the deal does not take place as a result of communication, in the future you will be easily found using the contacts from the signature.
Finally, one more feature of the letter body for those interlocutors who don’t like (can’t, don’t want, don’t have time) to answer your letters. Please indicate the default in the body 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 (you shouldn’t send the text from the example on Friday at 11:50). The recipient must be physically able to read and act on your letter. Such “silence” relieves you of responsibility for the interlocutor’s failure to respond. As always, you need to approach the use of this feature wisely. If a person responds to your letters on time and regularly, such an ultimatum may, if not offend him, then stress him out a little or lead to a decision not to answer the letter right now, but to force you to wait until Friday.
Attachments
Letters often come with attachments: resumes, commercial proposals, estimates, schedules, scans of documents - a very convenient tool and at the same time a source of popular errors.
Error : huge investment size. I 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 email program will almost certainly freeze for several minutes in a futile attempt to load a preview of the attachment. And God forbid the recipient tries to read this letter on a smartphone...
Personally, I immediately delete such letters. Don't want your email to end up in the trash before it's read? Check the size of the investment. It is recommended that it be no more than 3 MB.
What to do if it exceeds?
- Try reconfiguring your scanner to a different format and resolution. For example, PDF and 300dpi produce quite readable scans.
- Think about programs such as WinRar or 7zip archiver. Some files compress perfectly.
- What to do if the attachment is huge and you can’t compress it? For example, an almost empty accounting database weighs 900 MB. Cloud information storage will come to the rescue: Dropbox, Google Drive and the like. Some services, such as Mail.ru, automatically convert huge attachments into links to cloud storage. But I prefer to manage my information stored in the cloud myself, so I don’t welcome automation from Mail.ru.
And one more not entirely obvious recommendation about investments - their Name . It must be understandable and acceptable to the recipient. Once we in the company were preparing a commercial proposal in the name of... let it be Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. I received a letter from the manager with a draft CP for approval, and the attachment included a file named “ForFedi.docx”. The manager who sent me this had a dialogue that went something like this:
Dear manager, are you personally ready to approach this respected man and call him Fedya to his face?
Somehow, no, he’s a respected man, everyone calls him by his first name and patronymic.
Why did you name the attachment “For Fedi”? If I send it to him right now, do you think he will buy axes from us using this CP?
I was going to rename it later...
Why prepare a time bomb - the refusal of a potential client - or create extra work for yourself by renaming the file? Why not immediately name the attachment correctly: “For Fyodor Mikhailovich.docx” or even better - “KP_Sky_Axes.docx”.
So, we have more or less sorted out email as a “face”. Let's move on to looking at email as a tool for effective work and talk about its distraction component.
Working with letters
Email is a powerful distraction. As with any distraction, email needs to be dealt with by tightening rules and introducing work schedules.
At a minimum, you need to turn off ALL notifications about mail arrivals. If the email client is configured by default, you will be notified with a sound signal, an 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 from your life.
Some people have powerful willpower that allows them not to be distracted by notifications, but ordinary people are better off not tempting fate and turning them off. In Mozilla Thunderbird, this is done through the menu "Tools" → "Settings" → "General" → "When new messages appear."
If there are no notifications, how can you understand that a letter has arrived?
Very simple. You yourself, consciously, set aside time to sort through your mail, open your email client and see all the unread messages. This can be done twice a day, for example, at lunch and in the evening, or during forced downtime, for example, in traffic jams.
People often ask, what about response times and urgent letters? I answer: you do not have urgent letters in your mail. Unless you work in the customer support department (this department has its own rules for working with mail).
If there are urgent letters, the sender will notify you about this through other channels - telephone, SMS, Skype. Then you will consciously go into your email client and process urgent mail. All time management gurus (for example, Gleb Arkhangelsky with his “Time Drive”) declare a standard response to email within 24 hours. This is a normal rule of good manners - do not expect instant replies via email from your interlocutor. If there is an urgent letter, notify about it through faster communication channels.
So, we turned off notifications and now turn on the email client according to our schedule.
What to do when we go to the mail and engage in an activity called “sorting out email”? Where is the beginning and end of this work?
I've heard a lot about the zero inbox system, but, unfortunately, I haven't met a single person using 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 would be grateful if GTD gurus would comment and add or improve the described system.
It is important to understand and accept that email is not a task scheduler or archive for your activities. Therefore, the Inbox folder should always be empty. Once you start sorting through your inbox, don't stop or be distracted by anything until you've emptied this folder.
What to do with emails in your inbox? You need to go through each letter sequentially and delete it. Yes, just highlight and press Delete on your keyboard. If you can’t bring yourself to delete the letter, you’ll have to decide what to do with it.
- Can you answer it in three minutes? Do I need to answer it? Yes, it is necessary, and the answer will take no more than three minutes, then answer immediately.
- You must answer, but preparing an answer will take more than three minutes. If you use a task scheduler that allows you to convert an email into a task, turn the 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 the letter to it, and it turns into a task. But if you don’t have a task scheduler, move the letter to the “0_Run” subfolder.
- After quickly replying to a letter, turning it into a task, or simply 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 long-term storage folders I have.
- 0_Execute. I don’t have such a folder, but if you don’t have a planner, I repeat, you can put letters that require detailed work here. This folder also needs to be cleaned regularly, but with a thoughtful approach at a time specially allocated for this.
- 1_Ref. Here I put letters with background information: welcome letters with logins from various web services, tickets for upcoming flights, and so on.
- 2_Projects. An archive of correspondence on partners and projects with which there are current relationships is stored here. Naturally, a separate folder has been created for each project or partner. In the partner’s folder I put letters not only from his employees, but also letters from Neb employees related to this partner. Very convenient: if necessary, all correspondence on the project is at hand in a couple of clicks.
- 3_Museum. This is where I put those letters that it would be a pity to delete, and the benefit of them is not obvious. Also, folders with closed projects from “2_Projects” migrate here. In short, the “Museum” stores the first candidates for removal.
- 4_Documents. Here are letters with electronic samples of documents that may be useful in the future for accounting, for example, reconciliation reports from clients, tickets for trips taken. The folder has many similarities with the “2_Projects” and “1_Reference” folders, only accounting information is stored in it, and management information is stored in the “2_Projects” folder. In “4_Documents” there is dead information, and in “2_Projects” there is live information.
- 5_Knowledge. Here I only put really useful newsletters that I want to return to after a while for inspiration or to find solutions.
There are other email client settings that are important for the operation of this system. First, by default in Thunderbird there is a “Mark messages as read” checkbox. I prefer to do this consciously, so down with the flag! 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 some 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 must decide where a specific 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 menu “Tools” → “Message Filters”.
So, with the right approach, email 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 about the arrival of new letters? ;)
In Microsoft Outlook, you can specify that for all messages you send, an automatic Bcc (Bcc) will be sent to other distribution lists or users.
One scenario in which this rule is useful is when all group members reply to incoming email messages, such as Help Center. When one group member replies to a message, other group members automatically receive a copy of the reply, keeping all outgoing messages up to date.
client rules
Create a rule
Now, every time you send a message, be it a new message, forward a message or reply, people or groups that are specified in the rule will be automatically added as copy recipients. The names of people or groups do not appear in the Cc line of the compose message, but those names will appear to all recipients of the message.
Disable a rule
In the Mail view, on the tab home click the button rules > Manage Rules and Alerts.
On the tab in the section Rule
Click the button OK.
Rules and Alerts.
Advice: For more information about how to quickly disable this rule for individual messages, see the next section ("").
Use a category to disable automatic CC for individual messages
If you want the flexibility to turn off automatic new copy rules based on a single message without having to navigate through the dialog box rules and alerts, you can use the categories feature in Outlook, along with a rule.
Advice:
First, you need to create a rule to automatically send blind carbon copy (CC) for all email messages you send.
This specific rule is called client rules. Client rules run only on the computer on which it is created and run only if Outlook is running. If you were to send an email using an email account on another computer, the rule would not run from that computer so that it would be generated on that computer. This same rule must be created on each computer that plans to use it.
Create a rule
Now every time you send a message, be it a new message, forward a message or reply, people or distribution lists specified in the rule will be automatically added as copy recipients. The names of people or distribution lists do not appear in the Cc line of the compose message, but those names will appear to everyone who receives the message.
Disable a rule
To prevent a copy from being sent automatically, you must first disable the rule.
In Mail in the menu Service click the button Rules and Alerts.
On the tab Email Rules In chapter Rule uncheck the box corresponding to the rule you created.
Click the button OK.
You can now send a message without automatically sending a copy to other people or mailing lists. The rule will be inactive until it is re-enabled in the dialog box Rules and Alerts.
Advice:
Use a category to disable automatic CC for individual messages
If you want to disable the new automatic Send CC rule for individual messages without calling the dialog box Rules and Alerts, you can set the rule to a category that is available in Office Outlook 2007.
Modify the rule you created earlier so that when you add the specified category to a message, the rule does not automatically send a copy.
Whenever you want to disable the auto-cc rule for a message, apply a category to it.
Advice: You can use a keyboard shortcut if you specified it when creating the category.
When you send a message, the auto-copy rule will not apply.
Surprisingly, many people, when they need to send an email to several people at once, simply list the addresses in the "To" field, this is normal when this email is addressed to your colleagues or friends, but when sending letters to a group of clients, you are thus showing everyone addresses of other recipients, essentially revealing your address base.
All your clients need to do is forward this letter to your competitor and your contacts will immediately leak.
It’s strange, but many far from stupid people are surprised to learn that if you need to send a letter to many recipients so that they do not know about each other, then there is a “Bcc” field for this.
For example, for mail.ru it will look like this:
And so once again briefly:indicated the addresses in “to” - everyone can see to whom you sent the letters, indicated in “blind carbon copy” - everyone thinks that the letter is only for him.
And each recipient will receive a letter where in the “to” field there will be just his address . For other programs, if you can't find where to BCC, ask someone to show you. Another small point, you must specify one address in the “to” field; most programs or mail servers will not allow you to send a letter without this parameter.
And so, when it comes to sending out offers, news to a group of your clients - here the practice of using blind copy is clear, you must hide your address base. An interesting point about sending a letter to your colleagues, here it is recommended to act according to the situation, for example, sending a letter with a request to send suggestions (for example, to improve customer service) and if each colleague sees that other people have received the same letter, then most likely they will not respond - will rely on others, which means you need to use a hidden copy. If this order is carried out, then, for example, indicating your colleague’s boss will simply work wonders, and your order will be carried out.
A separate issue with suppliers. On the one hand, indicating all recipients in the copy should show the supplier that you have a choice and he should offer you good prices. On the other hand, the manager who received your letter, seeing that it was sent not only to him, will most likely treat your request “coolly”. Personally, in my opinion, I think that in the case of suppliers, you need to use a hidden copy, at least to protect trade secrets, but more likely for a good relationship with the supplier’s manager.
You can read a recent case of a specialist’s mistake, when all recipients saw other recipients: Smacks to everyone in this chat, there were really respectable people there - directors, but still many received spam in response.
Well, as always, discussion in the comments is welcome.
In order to place an order for the purchase of certain goods, special order forms are usually filled out, which indicate the quantity of products, their description, price, payment terms ( terms of payment), date of delivery, discounts, etc. In some cases, when it is necessary to make certain points quite clear, a covering letter is written, to which the order form is attached.
If the Seller or Supplier of the goods is able to fulfill the order, he sends the Buyer an order acknowledgment, or confirmation, which
This is most often a copy of the order (order copy, or duplicate), signed by the Seller. Typically, the order confirmation is attached to a cover letter in which the Seller expresses gratitude for the order, and also informs the Buyer about certain changes (changes in prices, delivery times, etc.).
If the Seller or Supplier of the goods is unable to fulfill the order for any reason, he either refuses the order (to refuse (to reject, to decline) the order), or offers an adequate replacement (substitute) for the product that is out of stock.
Clichés and expressions of order letters:
- -- In reply (response) to our letter (fax) of (dated)... , we thank you for... - In response to your letter (fax) of..., we thank you for.. .
- -- We accept your offer and have pleasure in placing an order with you for... -- We accept your offer and have the pleasure to place an order with you for...
Clichés and expressions of order confirmation letters:
- -- Thank you very much for your order No ... of (dated) ... -- Thank you for your order No. ... from...
- -- We hope that "you will have a good turnover, and that we will be dealing with your company in the future. -- We hope that you will have a good turnover, and we will cooperate with your company in the future.
Shop-Rite Supermarket
Rio Grande, NJ, 08240
Our Order for Shoes
In response to your letter of 14th February, we thank you for sending us your catalogs and of men's shoes. We are sure there will be a great demand for them in Russia.
We accept your offer and we have pleasure in placing an order with you for men's shoes. We are enclosing our Order No. 14.
Yours sincerely,
Enc. Order No.14
- O R D E R No.14
- (please refer to
this number on all
Shop-Rite Supermarket
Rio Grande, NJ, 08240
Please supply 1000 clothes for babies in the titles and colors specified below:
Title Color Quantity
T-shirt blue 200
T-shirt white 100
T-shirt black 100
T-shirt pink 300
Price: $4.99 each (total - $4,990)
Delivery: air freight
Payment: by letter of credit
Packing: standard
p.p. Chief Buyer
