"Politeness is not words." Why is there so much hypocrisy in business correspondence and how to get rid of it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Why do we need the rules of business communication and how is sincere concern for the interlocutor manifested - in the chapters from the book by Maxim Ilyakhov and Lyudmila Sarycheva "New Rules of Business Correspondence", which has not yet gone on sale.

Work letters are a pain. We conducted a survey in which our subscribers told us what annoys them in business correspondence. How many answers have we received! People were enraged by the same thing: all these words ASAP and FYI, deliberate officialdom and the appeal of a "colleague", instructions marked "URGENT!" and long, incoherent letters. If you look at it deeper, it turns out that people are pissed off by disrespect.

Disrespect is anything that gives out neglect or inattention to the interlocutor. Forgot to attach a file - disrespect. Making a mistake in the name is also disrespectful. Letters with the subject "Urgent" are again disrespectful, and what a disrespect. If you fix all this, and then add a little care, you get an email that the recipient wants to answer.

You have to learn to respect and care in letters, because a different tradition has developed in business communication: to write in cliches, with polite words and officially. But this tradition has nothing to do with normal human relationships. So it's time to change it.

You don't have to babysit them

When we talk about respect and care in courses, there is always someone who says, “Actually, it's their job to get the data for me! I pay them money for this and am not going to show respect to them yet!"

That's all right. Everything in this book is optional. There are not so many mandatory parts in business correspondence. A letter from the boss with the word "look" will work just as well as a long request to "pay attention to the attached document." Business correspondence is first of all a matter, and only then is a relationship.

People come to jobs they hate every day to carry out assignments they don't understand, from bosses that they despise. The world works without respect.

Another thing is that we respond much better to letters of respect than to ordinary ones. We answer faster, “turn on” more, find non-standard solutions, work with pleasure, get tired less and, as a result, become more productive. This does not mean that we ignore poorly written letters. Of course not. It's a job. This is the same as motivating employees with terror or good attitude. Good attitude works, but terror works too. When the boss yells at subordinates, and the customer humiliates the performer, most often both of them carry out assignments.

Another interesting phrase is "to show respect." Respect cannot be portrayed, because it is not an external manifestation of a person, it is an internal state. When a person respects himself, he treats others in the same way - it happens by itself. We are sure: since you are holding this book in your hands, you have no problems.

with respect to yourself and others.

Business correspondence has standards

Companies really have standards of business communication: reporting forms, established turnovers and professional language. We do not pretend to rewrite the rules. On the contrary: if there are standards that help you write faster, that's great. But there are a few things to know about the rules.

Not all of the rules that are adopted internally will work outside the company. Internal slang, the habit of putting half a company in a copy and the eternal FIY - these are already the themes of anecdotes among people who work with corporations. They call these "office meerkats". Guess why.

What is convenient for one person is not always convenient for the recipient. For example, there is a long correspondence with a client. The manager decides to involve a technician. He clicks Forward, writes “See. correspondence”, clicks“Send”. This is very convenient for the manager.

And the specialist will now have to read all the letters, sort out the endless line of "respected colleagues" and "bring them to your attention." The manager is comfortable, but the technician is not. The manager could prepare an excerpt from the correspondence or send only the necessary fragment with the question, and then the specialist would be comfortable. Would it affect the performance of the job? And the devil only knows. Most likely not: a technician is obliged to answer such letters. Swear and answer.

Talking about standards is useful only when they guide you and the recipient towards a common goal. For example, if you have a gorgeous sales pitch template in your company that leaves your customers with tears of joy on their cheeks, great, use it.

Politeness is not words

From: Vladimir Ionov

Theme: Happy New Year and Merry Christmas! (Already the tenth congratulations for today !!!)

Good day!

I want to thank you for the fruitful cooperation this year and wish you a Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

I wish you a good vacation so that it will be a pleasure to return to work. I wish you and your family health and happiness and success in our difficult business. (Why are you meddling in my family, huh?)

I hope for even more outstanding results next year. I do not want to belittle the importance of this year's results, but it is important to always strive for more! This is the only way to achieve truly significant heights. That is what I wish you and me. Hooray! (Thanks for the life lesson, oh sensei!)

Taking care of your business, quality control team leader

Vladimir Ionov (I'll take care of my business myself, thank you.)

Being polite is not the same as writing polite words. On the contrary: the more words, the more annoying the letter can turn out, especially if the politeness is cardboard. True politeness manifests itself in caring for the interlocutor.

The letter above is a Happy New Year. It looks very polite: the partner congratulated, wished the family health and thanked for their cooperation. But it is annoying because it is devoid of care and seems to be saturated with hypocrisy.

Care is shown not in words, but in the message: to write as shortly as possible and without unnecessary words; do not waste the reader's time; stick to a neutral, calm tone; in general, be of benefit to others, and not just loom before your eyes.

An even greater concern is not to write a letter unnecessarily. There is no need for a Happy New Year. It would be better if the interlocutor did not waste our time at all.

There are generally accepted forms of courtesy and hygiene. You probably know them, so let's just go over the basics. It is important to remember that politeness is not in words - it is always in an attitude.

Hello!

I read on your website what you deduce from the Dubary cream soup menu. This is very sad news, because every day I go to your house for lunch and order it two or three times a week. And now I don't even know what to replace it with. I don't like the rest so much. It would be better to remove something else.

Valeria N.

Hello Valeria!

We are all here, of course, terribly sorry that you were so upset about the soup. Dubary cream is an unpopular dish. Unfortunately, the policy of our institution does not provide for an individual approach - to cook what the only client likes. Therefore, we have removed Dubaris cream from the menu in favor of new soups. Sorry!

Best wishes, Olga, restaurant administrator

The client didn’t like the soup missing from the restaurant menu. She wrote a letter, and they answered her: there are all forms of politeness, but this politeness is not real. The meaning of this letter is "we don't care about you." This is a formal reply.

To make a letter polite, you need to show concern: talk about the reasons for such a decision, offer options, show the importance of her opinion. It is important that the reasons are honest: "it is not profitable for us" - this is the normal position of the restaurant.

Valeria, thanks for writing! We are very sorry. Dubary's cream was unpopular with customers, so we had to take it off the menu. It was ordered six to eight times a week (apparently, it was you), and we had to throw away most of the products, for us this position was unprofitable.

I understand it's sad when your favorite dish disappears from the menu. Instead of Dubaris cream, we began to prepare new ones. See what we now have:

• cream soup of champignons, cauliflower and porcini mushrooms - this is close to Dubary cream in taste and consistency;
• Maghreb tomato soup is completely different, but very tasty;

• broccoli and pumpkin puree soup with cream - it is creamy,

  like Dubary cream, but you have to love broccoli:-)

Olga, restaurant administrator.

P. S. Thank you so much for visiting us regularly for lunch. Next time, when you are with us, quietly tell the waiter “I hate Caesar”, you will receive a compliment from the chef:-)

If you have any suggestions on the assortment or menu, feel free to write to me - the opinion of our regular guests is very important to our team.

Thanks in a separate letter

To: Alexey Novik

Subject: Call a customer

Lyosha, hello!

Yesterday, your Saturn client was denied access to the system. We noticed it before him and fixed everything, we didn't bother you. But there could be a problem with synchronization, and only the client himself can see it.

Call him, please, find out if everything is all right.

Ksyusha R.

To: Ksenia Rybalchenko

Subject: Re: Call customer

Accepted! (This is normal, the recipient is calm.)

Lyosha

To: Alexey

Subject: Re: Call customer

Thanks! (And this is an unnecessary distraction.)

Ksyusha R.

It's good to thank your colleagues. But if you write one word "thank you" in the letter, then we will burden the colleague with unnecessary work: you will have to see the letter in the mailbox, open, close, delete. Instead of gratitude, you get extra work.

If you really want to thank a colleague, it is better to do it personally, with a smile. If you personally do not succeed, but you really want to thank, it makes sense to add additional materials or a gift to the letter.

In the example above, the best option is to simply not write the last thank you letter. But let's take a different situation: we are a restaurant manager, and a friend consulted you on a work issue for free. A good thank you might be like this:

Of course, this is not necessary: when they are ready to help us disinterestedly, no one expects gifts in return. But, if you do this, the person will be pleased.

The only thing worth paying attention to is to make it convenient for the reader to use the gift. If you have to catch a courier at an inconvenient time, it's so-so. Or a promotional code for a discount of 500 ₽ for purchases of 10 thousand or more is also a weak gift.

Worse is only a promotional code for a parachute jump, for the sake of which you need to go by train at five in the morning on Sunday, and also pay extra for a parachute.