Clearly Written Business Emails
- Thursday, June 3, 2010
I spend more time trying to understand business emails. This sounds funny coming from someone who teaches time management and effective business practices. I sure would like the opportunity to give a mini lesson to those out there who write emails that require multiple responses in order to get to the point.
As a recent example, someone asked me to give them a price on “some work”. That was all I got from the email, no details or explanation. We went back and forth on several emails before I had a good idea what the person wanted. The entire “question” took four days to answer, when I could easily have done it in fifteen minutes if the person had used TEA time: Tell, Explain, and Ask.
TEA time is the best example of clear communication, whether oral or written. T - Tell them what you want or what you want to discuss; E - explain the problem, project, issue, etc; and then A - ask for an action, decision, response.
When it comes to vendors I’d like to use, having to trade several emails just to obtain basic information from them makes me a little bit nervous about the quality of the product they might deliver. They are “dumping” their unprofessional manner on me, and I sure don’t want them “dumping” an unprofessional product on my clients.
Effective business correspondence should be a professional part of what you do. I’m here to help my clients maximize their time and dollars and hope that you have that same sense of dedication for your business. If you are operating your business with shorthand and guessing games when it comes to communication, then you are probably wasting more than you think. You are wasting time, money and clients.
Avoid flipping off a poorly defined question just to get the ball rolling and get it off your “to do” list. Don’t use shorthand and half-phrases in the business world; save all that for a personal text to your BFF.Labels: business emails, effective communication
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