A business Letter is used to convey a written message formally or professionally between the organizations, between the company and clients, to the employees, employers, suppliers, managers, etc. An effective Business Letter is used in many ways, like sending invoices, offering Letters, apologies, invitations, orders, instructions, meetings to be held, allocation of work, etc. An excellent qualified Business Letter plays a vital role in the workplace. So let’s understand what makes a good Business Letter, parts of a Business Letter, essential qualities of a good Business Letter, how it impacts, etc.
As the Business Letter helps to create a reasonable opinion on the company, one should be attentive and try to impress the receiver with an Effective Business Letter. We should concentrate on the essential qualities of a formal letter to make it more effective. So while writing a Business Letter, everyone should remember these points. Let us understand the characteristics of a good Business Letter in detail.
How to Start a Good Business Letter?
We can start a good Business Letter in a particular format. It has specific rules and regulations to make it more effective. Also, there are different parts of a perfect professional Letter. A minimum of 10 to 12 parts is essential for a good Business Letter. A professional letter can be written in various forms like block style, semi-block and modular block, etc.
Essentials of Effective Business Letter
While writing an effective Business Letter, we should consider these essential characteristics as given below:
The tone of the letter should be professional
One should write a formal Letter professionally. The tone of your Business Letter should be confident, sincere, encouraging and polite. The superiors or subordinates, whoever will read, should be pleased and can feel the liveliness of your Letter. It should not appear like a copy-paste or a machine’s work. Then only we can say that the essential Business Letter will act as the best communication tool.
Clarity of Thought
One should write a Business Letter clearly and concisely. Whatever the sender wants to convey should reach the reader straight away. We should not prolong or add unnecessary stuff to the Letter, which leads to miscommunication. The clarity of thought is one of the best characteristics of an Effective Business Letter.
Organized Information
It is another essential quality for a good Business Letter. If you need to send the formal Letter to multiple receivers, the information must be organized and it should be clear as to which instruction applies to whom. One also needs to form multiple paragraphs if necessary. The content of an effective Business Letter should be logical and clear.
Highlight the Special Words with Colour
It is a great idea to colour the words which you think will get the receiver’s attention. You may just highlight the words or phrases you want. However, make sure to choose a colour if it needs to be given for printing because some colours may not appear.
Auto Text
It is an additional feature for which we need to modify settings so that the company name, sender’s name, etc. some vital information will appear with colour without giving commands. There will be no need to add colour to every word. It helps not only in highlighting but also in saving time.
Show your Optimism
A good Business Letter should build a positive and smooth relationship between the sender and the receiver. It helps to maintain Business activities with pleasure.
Estimate the Pulse of the Reader
The sender needs to forecast how the receiver can react with the proposal posting in that particular Business Letter. Based on that, the sender needs to write professionally.
Conclude with a Reminder
The conclusion part of a professional Letter should be like a calling option or to make the receiver react etc.
Proofreading
Proofreading is the most characteristic of a good Business Letter. Before sending it, it’s better to check once or twice is always suggestible.
These are some of the essentials for a good Business Letter. Besides these, we have some more characteristics to make the formal Letter more effective. They are categorized as Inner Quality and Outer Quality.
Inner Quality
-
Clear: try using simple and lucid sentences. Do not complicate things and explain them with ease. Do not use huge sentences and complicated vocabulary.
-
Concise: A Letter should always convey the matter with minimum usage of words. You can use particular terms which sum up the meaning of an entire topic. Try to use those kinds of words in the Letters to save your time and also the reader’s time.
-
Concrete
-
Courtesy
-
Accuracy
-
Well mannered
-
Completeness etc.
Outer Quality
-
Size, colour, quality of the paper, etc. Sometimes, we get instructions about Letter writing format, like the font size, colour and paper size to be used. Try to stick to the instructions to maintain uniformity.
-
Envelope
-
Way of folding etc. Try not to crumple the Letter and keep it neat and clean. This way, it appears formal and pleasant. The reader will also like to read a Letter that looks pleasant.
Also, the characteristics of an effective Business Letter can be explained with a principle of 7 C’s. It can be shown below.
()
Hence, by constituting all the above points, one can say that using all essentials of a Business Letter only will make it an effective and professional way of communication.