David Crosby - Business Letters & Emails Made Easy

Business Letters & Emails Made Easy
Edited by David Crosby

Text Copyright 1997, 2010 Wyvern Publications Limited
Format Copyright 2010 Lawpack Publishing Limited

2010 Lawpack Publishing Limited

Lawpack Publishing Limited
7689 Alscot Road
London SE1 3AW

www.lawpack.co.uk

All rights reserved

Printed in Great Britain

ISBN: 978-1-906971-39-7

Exclusion of Liability and Disclaimer

While every effort has been made to ensure that this Lawpack publication provides accurate and expert guidance, it is impossible to predict all the circumstances in which it may be used. Accordingly, neither the publisher, author, retailer, nor any other suppliers shall be liable to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused by the information contained in or omitted from this Lawpack publication.

For convenience (and for no other reason) him, he and his have been used throughout and should be read to include her, she and her.

The publisher would like to thank the customers who contributed letters to this Guide, including: David Lambert of APTECH, Peter Le Conte of Van der Windt Packaging (UK) Ltd, DR Radia of NRG Victory Reinsurance Ltd, Eddie Mander of GCS, DRE Clark of the AEC Group of Companies Ltd and Martin Oates of BSG Products. Special thanks also to Vic Blake of Cambridge for his contributions to the work.

Much has changed in the way businesses communicate with each other since this book was first published in 1997. Emailing has become widespread while the use of faxes and letters has dwindled. Yet the need to communicate well and effectively is timeless; perhaps more important than ever, some might say, in this age of truncated text messages and monosyllabic emails. Composing well-written business letters and emails still takes time. If you think about it, many can take 30 or 40 minutes, or even an hour each, just to get sorted. Going through the morning in-box can be the start of a frustrating, time-consuming irritation for many managers.

It doesnt have to be that way. All the correspondence templates in this book may be copied straight from the page, for letters or emails as appropriate, and some will require only a slight amendment. With other templates, you may want to take a phrase here or a paragraph there and slot it into the rest of your letter or email. The important thing to remember is that the thinking has already been done for you so, those difficult situations, where you cant quite get the right words together, can now be banished forever.

When a typical letter or formal email can cost a business about 15 to send out, mostly in the time of the manager composing it, anything that can bring this cost down will make a big difference. With 198 template letters/emails in this Made Easy Guide (each costing a fraction of this amount), it is easy to see how many pounds you can save by slicing hours off your writing time.

Identifying how subtle tones in a letter or email are achieved using different phrases is not always easy to pinpoint. What makes, for example, the tone in a letter of complaint either friendly, neutral, angry, diplomatic or strong? To help you find the answer, each template in this book comes with its own incisive commentary, many of which highlight the specific words and phrases that alter the tone. The commentaries also clarify the meaning that is implicit in the words chosen, and demonstrate how a recipient will perceive and interpret those phrases, helping you to get exactly what you want.

The Guide has a comprehensive Contents page, which groups the templates by topic (Managing Suppliers, Managing Customers, etc.). Each topic is then subdivided into further categories, for example, under Managing Suppliers you will find (amongst others) Quotations, Orders, Invoices and statements, etc. Each template is also numbered for ease of reference.

But what if you want to look up all the templates concerned with, say, negotiating? All you have to do is turn to the Index of Correspondence by Type opposite, where a comprehensive list of these templates (and other types) will be found. For a final catch-all, there is a comprehensive topic index at the end of the work.

No matter what correspondence you have to write, Business Letters & Emails Made Easy will repay you, not only in time saved, but also in helping you to clinch deals, get debts paid quickly, obtain better prices and persuade people to your way of thinking. Whatever the purpose, we wish you every success.

This index is designed to be used with the Contents and the main Index at the end of the book. The Contents gives a good overview of the templates concerned with suppliers, customers, employees and so on. But if you have to write a complaining letter or email (and want to compare these kinds of templates), it is difficult to find them easily by examining the Contents. However, if you look up Complaining in this index, you will find a list of the templates featured that are concerned with this topic and their page number.

Accepting

100 Accepting an agency outlining the terms

209 Accepting a request for a donation

212 Accepting an invitation to speak at a meeting

Acknowledging

56 Acknowledging an order goods temporarily out of stock

153 Acknowledging a job application

Advising

20 Advising existing suppliers of a change in terms and conditions

21 Advising a supplier of delivery instructions

46 Quoting and advising a potential customer

71 Advising a customer that new orders cannot be supplied

146 Advising that immediate payment is on its way

147 Advising an international customer that payment is on its way

167 Advising employees of an intention to relocate

Amending (see also Correcting)

10 Amending delivery instructions

11 Amending the order quantity

57 Telling a customer its too late to amend an order

73 Negotiating an amendment to an order

Announcing

80 Appointment of a new General Manager

81 Personal announcement to a customer about your new position

134 Announcing court proceedings in seven days

138 Announcing a credit surcharge on all accounts

166 Announcing a bonus

179 Announcing a performance award

184 Announcing extra holiday entitlement

185 Announcing the carrying over of outstanding holiday entitlement

Apologising

58 Apologising to a person receiving unwanted mail

61 Apologising to a customer for a delay in supplying a product

62 Apologising for a missed appointment

63 Making a gentle apology to an established customer

65 Apologising for breaking a verbal assurance

66 Apologising to a customer for items that have not arrived

Appealing

130 Appealing to a customers sense of fair play to obtain payment

Appreciating (see also Congratulating; Thanking)

75 Responding to a letter of appreciation

180 Appreciating an employees special effort

Asking (see also Requesting)

33 Demanding that defective work be made good

99 Asking for an agency