Over the past decades, business correspondence via email has gained immense popularity and has become one of the main methods of business communication. Today it is difficult to find a person who would not use e-mail in the practice of interpersonal communications. Despite this, many today are asking the question: so that all the rules are followed? How can you use a competent letter to form a good impression of the sender among the recipient?
This article describes the regulations for business correspondence on e-mail, A practical advice The information presented in the article will help you learn proper business communication when composing emails.
Many people start their working day by checking their mailbox for new messages. But, unfortunately, despite the prevalence of this method of exchanging information, many do not know how to correctly use the language of business correspondence, mistaking emails for an informal way of communication.
Thanks to the speed of delivery, it simplifies the exchange of important official documents, forms, applications, but even here people make mistakes when sending letters. It very often happens that when composing an email when exchanging any files, recipients for some reason do not write accompanying essays and do not enter topics, which can complicate the work of recipients. The purpose of this article is to answer the question: how to send a letter by e-mail and comply with all the rules of business written communication via e-mail?
When composing emails, all fields provided must be filled in
The rules of business correspondence by e-mail oblige the sender of the letter to fill out all the fields provided in the e-mail, such as the address and name of the recipient and sender of the letter. A subject must be described that briefly describes the essence of the letter being sent. Very often, the fate of the sent letter and the speed of resolution of the problem stated in it depend on the correctly described topic. Business email should begin with a greeting - this simple show of respect for the recipient is very important when corresponding. After the greeting, there should be a text that is called the “body of the letter”, and at the end a signature should be left, for example, “With respect, Petr Ivanovich Brisov.”
Greetings in business correspondence
This point is worth further focusing on, since a gesture of respect is very important in any aspect of business communications. The optimal greeting phrase is “Good afternoon” or “Hello.” Conducting business correspondence via email limits the sender from using the phrases “Good evening” or “ Good morning”, since the recipient may read the letter long after receiving it. It is also not correct to use colloquial expressions used in greetings.
After a greeting word or phrase, you should address the recipient by name and patronymic, and if the name is unknown to the sender, this moment can be skipped. Then you can move on to stating the purpose of the letter.
Attached files in business emails
If the main purpose of the letter is not only a written narrative and presentation of the essence of the issue, but also sending a file, then it is better to attach the sent object first. It often happens that many senders, due to inattention, having stated the essence of the issue in the body of the letter, forget to attach the necessary attachment. Such negligence can negatively affect the business reputation of the sender of a business letter.
The email address should be recognizable and concise
The rules of business correspondence by e-mail require the sender to have a recognizable electronic name, which must contain truthful information about the name of the sender. Official letters and appeals look very unconcise and stupid when the email address contains informal expressions or words, for example, email address"limon_petya". This looks very undignified for an adult. To conduct business correspondence, it is better to create a separate email and observe business email etiquette.
Using the quick Reply (Response) function to respond to previously received emails
The Reply or Response function (in its abbreviated version it looks like Re:) helps the user in a fast way Reply to previously sent messages from the sender. This function also has the universal ability to read previous correspondence with your interlocutor via given topic. But the rules of business correspondence by e-mail oblige the sender to rename the subject of the business letter if the essence of the discussion is changed during the correspondence.
Before sending a business letter, you should proofread for spelling errors and punctuation.
E-mail simplifies the exchange of information, but during business correspondence you should not neglect the rules of the Russian language, since a carelessly made mistake can affect the authority of the sender. Before sending a letter, you should review the text several times and carefully check it for spelling and punctuation errors. Many electronic email clients have a spell check function, so you should pay attention to the words underlined in red. If you have doubts about the correct spelling, you should seek help on the Internet or check the spelling using a spelling dictionary.
The addressee field should be filled in last.
To avoid sending unfinished or unedited letters, the address of the recipient of a business letter should be entered at the very last moment before sending. This rule is also included in the basics of business email correspondence. It happens that when filling out the addressee field, email may offer a list of previously used recipients; here you should also focus your attention so as not to mistakenly send a composed business letter to a third-party addressee.
Structuring a business letter
The rules for structuring text apply not only to paper media, but also to the rules of business correspondence via e-mail. It is not always convenient for the recipient to read large volumes of text of letters on the monitor screen. To simplify this point, you should break the text into logically formed small paragraphs and avoid complicated sentences when writing the text of business letters. The optimal length of one sentence in a business letter should be no more than fifteen words.
The essence of a business letter should be stated in essence
In addition to the specified topic of the business letter, the recipient should also be interested in the clearly formulated first and second sentences of the main text. The sender’s task is to state at the beginning of the letter the essence of the problem or issue for which he is addressing the recipient. The first sentence should indicate the purpose for which the business letter is being sent. Sample: “We inform you that the terms of the obligation under contract No. 45 of 01/02/2017 “On the supply of bulk materials” are coming to an end. To renew the contract, you must submit a second package of documents.” Thanks to the designated purpose, the recipient has the opportunity to understand the main idea of the business letter. If the text of the letter is too large, then it is better to use the function of attaching an object as an attachment in the form text document, but at the same time, the accompanying essay that highlights the business letter should be left with a text box. Sample: “We are sending you an electronic copy of the letter from the company Mak-Stroy LLC for your review.” We ask you to inform us of your decision on the issue of extending contract No. 45 of 01/02/2017 “On the supply of bulk materials” until the deadline specified in the letter.”
Every business email should have a response.
There are negative examples of business correspondence when the recipient ignores the business letter for some reason. Sometimes there may indeed be cases when an answer cannot be given due to certain situations, for example, the resolution of the problem may take several days or the recipient is in thought and cannot immediately answer the question posed. In this case, a brief comment on this matter should be given, for example, “Hello, Pyotr Ivanovich. I received your letter, but today I find it difficult to respond, since I must consult with senior management. I will report your problem to the CEO of our company and give an official response by the end of the week. Sincerely, Sales Department Manager Belov Ivan Gennadievich.”
It is worth remembering that if a response was not given within three working days, then the fact that the recipient of a business letter remains silent can be assessed as ignoring and refusing to communicate with the sender.
When writing response letters, you should answer all the questions asked.
If the letter sent to the recipient is of an interrogative nature, then when composing the letter you should give answers to the questions in the order that is present in the received text of the business letter. If questions have been asked, the sender hopes to receive specific answers to them. When composing a letter, you should not number your answers; you just need to state your thoughts in order. In order to answer all the questions posed, you first need to re-read the received business letter several times, and if there are too many questions, it is better to write them out separately to prevent them from being missed. If it is impossible to answer some of the questions posed, it is worth pointing out that this moment for some reason the answer cannot be given.
Do not overuse abbreviations, emotional design and capital letters
There are negative examples of business correspondence when senders dilute it by using informal signs in the form of emoticons. Their use is popular when communicating in in social networks, however, the rules of business correspondence do not welcome such manifestations of emotions, since the recipient may not know their true meaning and take them for an incomprehensible set of punctuation errors.
You should also avoid writing text in capital letters. On the Internet, a set of words written in capital letters is called “flashy phrases” and more often than not such phrases carry a negative connotation. The recipient, when reading an electronic business letter, may evaluate such a font negatively, which will have a detrimental effect on the perception of meaning. If in a business letter you need to emphasize the importance of any point, it is better to use introductory phrases, for example, “Please note that you need to provide a package of documents to renew the contract no later than 02/10/2017” or “Please note that the documents the contract extension must be submitted by 02/10/2017.”
Do not transmit sensitive information via email
To transfer personal or confidential information It is better to refuse electronic mailboxes, as there is a threat of information being intercepted by attackers for use for their own selfish purposes. Such information may include: telephone numbers, passwords from bank cards, personal bank accounts, etc. It is important to remember that information is stored on the mail agent server and can be stolen if hacked.
The sender's signature must be at the end of the letter.
As mentioned earlier, every letter sent must contain a specific signature. Often, mailbox developers introduce a signature block function, in which you can enter your job title, name and contact phone number. Subsequently, this block will automatically appear at the end of each letter, which will make typing easier. It is important to write a signature correctly so that the recipient has the opportunity to correctly address the sender when replying to the letter. An example of a signature might look like this: “With respect, Nikolai Alexandrovich Petrov, +79810000000.”
Drawing conclusions, it can be noted that in order to understand how to conduct business correspondence via email, no need to master additional and complex basics. You just have to adhere to the basic rules of etiquette and observe the norms of the Russian language.
One of the most popular functions on the site is the application or order form, the data from which is sent by email to the site owner. As a rule, such forms are simple and consist of two or three fields for data entry. How to create such an order form? This requires the use of language HTML markup and language PHP programming.
The HTML markup language itself is simple; you just need to figure out how and where to put certain tags. With the PHP programming language, things are a little more complicated.
For a programmer, creating such a form is not difficult, but for an HTML layout designer, some actions may seem difficult.
Create a data submission form in html
The first line will be as follows
Now let's put everything together.
Now let's make the fields in the form mandatory. We have the following code:
Create a file that accepts data from the HTML form
This will be a file called send.php
In the file, at the first stage, you need to accept data from the post array. To do this, we create two variables:
$fio = $_POST["fio"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
Variable names in PHP are preceded by a $ sign, and a semicolon is placed at the end of each line. $_POST is an array into which data from the form is sent. In the html form, the sending method is specified as method="post". Thus, two variables are taken from html forms. To protect your site, you need to pass these variables through several filters - php functions.
The first function will convert all the characters that the user will try to add to the form:
In this case, new variables are not created in php, but existing ones are used. What the filter will do is transform the character "<" в "<". Также он поступить с другими символами, встречающимися в html коде.
The second function decodes the URL if the user tries to add it to the form.
$fio = urldecode($fio);
$email = urldecode($email);
With the third function we will remove spaces from the beginning and end of the line, if any:
$fio = trim($fio);
$email = trim($email);
There are other functions that allow you to filter php variables. Their use depends on how concerned you are that an attacker will try to add program code to this html email submission form.
Validation of data transferred from HTML form to PHP file
In order to check whether this code works and whether data is being transferred, you can simply display it on the screen using the echo function:
echo $fio;
echo "
";
echo $email;
The second line here is needed to separate the output of php variables into different lines.
Sending received data from an HTML form to email using PHP
To send data by email, you need to use the mail function in PHP.
mail("to which address to send", "subject of the letter", "Message (body of the letter)","From: from which email the letter is sent \r\n");
For example, you need to send data to the email of the site owner or manager [email protected].
The subject of the letter should be clear, and the message of the letter should contain what the user specified in the HTML form.
mail(" [email protected]", "Application from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n");
It is necessary to add a condition that will check whether the form was sent using PHP to the specified email address.
if (mail(" [email protected]", "Order from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n"))
{
echo "message sent successfully";
) else (
}
Thus, the program code of the send.php file, which will send HTML form data to email, will look like this:
$fio = $_POST["fio"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$fio = htmlspecialchars($fio);
$email = htmlspecialchars($email);
$fio = urldecode($fio);
$email = urldecode($email);
$fio = trim($fio);
$email = trim($email);
//echo $fio;
//echo "
";
//echo $email;
if (mail(" [email protected]", "Application from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n"))
( echo "message sent successfully";
) else (
echo "errors occurred while sending the message";
}?>
Three lines to check whether the data is being transferred to the file are commented out. If necessary, they can be removed, since they were needed only for debugging.
We place the HTML and PHP code for submitting the form in one file
In the comments to this article, many people ask the question of how to make sure that both the HTML form and the PHP code for sending data to email are in one file, and not two.
To implement this work, you need to place the HTML code of the form in the send.php file and add a condition that will check for the presence of variables in the POST array (this array is sent from the form). That is, if the variables in the array do not exist, then you need to show the user the form. Otherwise, you need to receive data from the array and send it to the recipient.
Let's see how to change the PHP code in the send.php file:
//check if variables exist in the POST array
if(!isset($_POST["fio"]) and !isset($_POST["email"]))(
?> ) else (
//show the form
$fio = $_POST["fio"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$fio = htmlspecialchars($fio);
$email = htmlspecialchars($email);
$fio = urldecode($fio);
$email = urldecode($email);
$fio = trim($fio);
$email = trim($email);
if (mail(" [email protected]", "Application from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n"))(
echo "Message sent successfully";
) else (
echo "Errors occurred while sending the message";
}
}
?>
We check the existence of a variable in the POST array with the isset() PHP function. An exclamation point before this function in a condition means negation. That is, if the variable does not exist, then we need to show our form. If I hadn’t put the exclamation point, the condition would literally mean “if exists, then show the form.” And this is wrong in our case. Naturally, you can rename it to index.php. If you rename the file, do not forget to rename the file name in the line
