Looking for a response to a particular situation, see other professional email responses here.
How do hope to satisfy your clients as a business owner without having to write succinct and clear replies to their emails? Or how would a salesperson or marketing personnel elaborate properly on the value of his product or service if he cannot effectively reply the email inquiries of potential clients?
I have covered the basics of emails replies in the article on Examples of Responding to Emails Professionally, and I was able to provide a couple of samples.
Tips for Writing Good and Effective Email Replies
In this post, I shall provide more samples on replying emails professionally and elaborate on some other tips for writing good and effective email replies. So, you should pay attention to the following tips:
1. Be clear and direct in your email replies, and avoid being ambiguous.
That means, you should know what you want to say; and say it with the shortest possible words.
Here’s a clear, direct and unambiguous acknowledgment email reply sample:
Reply Email Sample I: Approving an Application
Dear Mr. Siva,
Welcome! Your application to Woculus has been approved. We are proud to have you as one of our editors.
Siva, as I said before, our vision at Woculus is to be the one-stop site where business owners, marketers and sales personnel can learn how to use technology profitably for their businesses. Our posts are well-research, practical and rich. As an upcoming blog, we constantly strive to provide the highest quality posts to our readers. If there is a better post about any of our areas of interest on the Internet, we are not doing our job well.
Find your login details below:
Username: Don Siva
Password: siVA2013
The entire Woculus team looks forward to a very professional working relationship with you, and we ready to support you in any way possible to serve our audience better.
Yours very truly,
2. Make your replies one-to-one.
That means you should take responsibility for your email replies and speak directly to the reader.
For example, instead of writing,
It would be appreciated if you are able to send the proposal before the weekend
You should write,
I would really appreciate it if you are able to send the proposal to me before the weekend.
From every email, you should be able to deduce some useful tips in deciding the best way to frame your reply. For example, you should know:
- What will make the reader of your email respond favorably
- What is of interest to him or her
- What is his or her perspective on the issue at hand
Here are two reply email samples, written one-to-one:
Reply Email Sample II: Declining an Application without Offending
Mr. Vijay,
Thank you for your recent application to become a writer on Woculus. We are very much complimented that you would like to write for Woculus.
Your application details will be retained in our files. Currently, we do not have any vacant section; and our writers are on the top of their jobs. We shall, however, contact you as soon as we have an opening.
I would appreciate being notified if you wish to cancel your application for any reason.
Best regards,
Reply Email Sample III: Approving Application for a Different Position
Dear Mr. Frank,
Thank you for applying for the opening in our company and sending your design samples. I have reviewed your style and thought about the issues you raised during our last discussion, especially your reluctance to create new design samples for our evaluation. Since then, I have received new design samples from more than ten candidates, lending credence to their works.
Eventually, I have concluded that your samples are not enough to help me reach a conclusion about you. So, we now have a new Chief Designer for our company. However, I would be happy to work with you on a contract basis if you agree to this.
Thanks again, Frank, for your interest in our company.
Cordially,
3. Keep it Short, Simple and Sweet (KISSS).
Be careful of the length of your email replies; they determine if they will be read or not. This is an old principle of writing that still holds true in writing email replies.
Reply Email Sample IV: Declining an Invitation
Dear Miss Sheryl,
Pardon the delay in responding to your last email. I have been in the process of setting up my own social network; so I had to resign from Facebook Inc.
I very much appreciate your invitation to help evaluate the Facebook App you are developing this time, but this may not be in the best interest of Facebook’s management. You may contact some other editors on Facebook forum.
Thank you for understanding.
Best regards,
Reply Email Sample V: Declining an Appointment
Dear Mr. Mohammed,
I was flattered by your request to make me a minister in your church branch in Bahamas. Regrettably, I won’t be able to accept this position.
I wish you well in Bahamas
Yours truly,
More Reply Email Samples
You will find more reply email samples below. For tips on writing and responding to business emails, you may refer to my post on 9 Tips You Need to Write and Respond to Emails Professionally.
Reply Email Sample VI: Reply to request for information about your product or service
Dear Mrs. Thatcher,
Thank you for your inquiry about Apple Stores. Find attached herewith some literature on our products including the products in alpha development stage. I have also included a sample username and password for you to try out the products that catch your fancy.
Please, do not hesitate to call me if you have further questions. I will be glad to have you as a customer.
Sincerely,
Reply Email Sample VII: Reply to Request for Samples
Dear Mr. Ahsan,
I have attached five samples of my original designs to this email. The sixth attachment is a list of designs where I collaborated with other designers including the location (URL) of the designs on the Internet.
Thank you for allowing me to send samples to you. I will be pleased to participate in the forthcoming competition and also introduce my services to your team.
Kindly notify me should you need any other information.
Regards,
With the above reply email samples, you should be able to effectively respond, whether positively or negatively, to emails that come your way.
As a recap, you should always ensure your email replies are:
- Clear, direct and unambiguous
- One-to-one (between you and the reader)
- Short, Simple and Sweet
My firm uses a web based ticketing system for all of our support requests. We’ve been using this system for years, but just like the rest of you, we still have users who refuse to use it. Some of them are VIPs in the company; bigwigs that can do whatever they want. So when they email one of us individually or use the group email instead of creating a ticket, we just let it slide. Others like to think they’re as important, but are nowhere near the level where they can disregard long standing company policy and skirt the ticketing system. This is the tale of one such user.
Aside from not using the ticketing system, my other pet peeve is users who give no description whatsoever of their problem. They just say «broken» or «again» or «fix it.» Today’s email simply said «help» in the subject line and it was sent to two of the four of us on the support team. I make eye contact with my fellow techie who was also lucky enough to receive it and said, «I got this.»
Before we get too far into this story, you should know that this particular user and I get along famously. She’s one of our «special users» for sure, but she’s a great person and we give each other crap all the time.
Her office is 3 floors up, and normally I take the elevator. I decided this time to take the stairs. And I ran. I ran as fast as I could. By the time I got to her office, I was out of breath and a little sweaty. She’s sitting there filing her nails, looking bored. I reach deep back to my high school days and find my inner actor.
Me: «Oh my god, are you ok?!»
Her: blank stare
Me: «Your email only said «help» so I came as fast as I could! Can you breathe alright? Did you fall? What’s going on??»
Mind you, I am not being quiet about this, so the commotion starts to attract some attention from her nosy coworkers. Chairs swivel and necks crane. She starts getting self conscious as all of her coworkers are now not-so-subtly looking.
Her: «No, no. Umm, my Outlook icon disappeared. I found it in the start menu but I need it back on my desktop.»
Me: «But you’re ok? It’s just about an icon on your desktop?»
Her: «Uh… yeah?»
Her coworkers start to chuckle quietly.
Me: deep breath and sit down at her computer «Oh, well why didn’t you say that?»
Her: «I didn’t really know how to describe it.»
Me: «Your icon is back on the desktop. If you’d like to avoid throwing us all into a panic next time, please use the ticketing system and maybe try using your big girl words to describe what’s going on. I may show up with building security to make sure there isn’t a hostage situation or something equally embarrassing. Lunch today?»
Her: icy daggers stabbing into my face from her eyes «Yeah, sounds good.»
In the trading world, it is common to get bursts of one word emails. Things like “ack”, “ok”, “cxl”, etc. are some of the common emails one will get. Even when IM is the prevalent communications channel these days, email is still a heavily used channel for communicating information and getting responses.
Those responses are critical because it is an acknowledgment that the information is read and acted upon in real-time. Decisions are being made instantly, so this type of interaction makes obvious sense. However, in every other situation, such replies are downright annoying.
What percentage of emails do you get that are simply “ok”, “thanks”, or some other variation? It is maddening to get these, and I have been guilty of this on occasion. They fill up your inbox and often times completely unnecessary. Those are not the only bad emails however, so as a public service I am presenting you with some of the more egregious email mistakes so that we can all bring some peace to the email insanity.
- The Gratuitous Thanks – So you get an important or useful email off to someone, so the recipient feels the need to send another email to simply say “Thanks”. I get the desire to show appreciation, but this is not a conversation. Save the thank you and other pleasantries for a face-to-face or phone conversation.
- The Acknowledgment – A variation of above, but here we get an OK as the response. Unless the email being sent specifically requires a confirmation of something, like a direct question, then this is totally unnecessary. This is particularly annoying when it is in response to group messages that are merely informational in nature. There is no response required, yet you always get the one person that hits reply all, thus crapping up your inbox in the process.
- The Appointment Confirm – So you have a scheduled appointment and is in each person’s calendar, do you send another email before the meeting to confirm? Maybe, but simply verifying an appointment is a wasted opportunity. Instead of asking whether the meeting is on, which sounds very passive, state that you look forward to meeting (or talking) later and here is some really useful information that you might like. It is relationship building rolled up into your neurotic desire to organize everything turning an annoying email into an opportunity.
- The Mystery Subject Line – It is mystifying that people still think sending emails without a subject line is acceptable. This usually happens when someone is sending an attachment. Guess what though, that is what SPAM emails look like and generally get deleted when they hit my inbox. Do yourself a favor, and put something in the subject line and make is descriptive so that the recipient has some context (and does not delete it out of hand).
- The Epic Novel – If an email is longer than a few sentences, then it better be important. These emails are harder to scan, so it requires some dedicated time to read through and understand. If it is full of fluff, then it gets the too long, don’t read treatment. Your goal therefore should be to keep it simple and concise. If it gets any longer than a few paragraphs, then maybe it is better to pick up the phone or simplify what you are trying to convey.
- The Everyone’s Included – Does your CC to To line word wrap by a few lines? Then you have WAY too many people included. Emails should be targeted to the relevant parties, otherwise it is filling up other people’s inboxes with non-essential messages and you potentially create really hairy and complex message threads from respondents.
- The Guilt Treatment – So someone does not respond instantly to your email? Should you send another email asking for a response an hour later? This may be a shock, but not everyone is on email 24/7. Email is an asynchronous communications medium, so unless it is absolutely urgent, an email may not be seen or responded to for awhile. Relax and give it some time before reaching out again, otherwise your insistent emails can get really annoying. Honestly, if it is so bloody important, why not just call the person?
Do not be an annoying email person. The world is already weighed under by the deluge of excessive and unimportant electronic messages. These are only some of the most irritating behaviors I see on a regular basis, but if you have others, I would love to hear what your email pet peeves are.
Something I learned recently is that people take one word emails rudely. A customer recently emailed me if we allow custom domains. I replied “Yes.” and sent it off. The customer replied back saying “How rude. I don’t want to work with a company that is rude to me.”
Was I being rude? I don’t think so. I got back to the customer within 3 minutes of receiving the email and answered his question. However I can see how it can be perceived as being rude. This is my strategy for next time:
Hi {First Name},
Yes! We allow custom domains. We have setup instructions here {link to the instructions}.
Let me know if there is anything else we can help you with.
Rishi
So just watch out with one word email replies. Your customer might think you are being rude even though you aren’t.
Tags: customer support, good advice
This entry was posted
on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 10:29 am and is filed under Marketing Tips.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
So last night it appeared that Michael Arthur, provost and president of University College London, had committed something of a gaffe.
An email was sent from @provost@ucl.ac.uk addressed to ALL STUDENTS – that’s nearly 29,000 people – and all it said was «bello!»
And did the 29,000 recipients act responsibly and refrain from hitting «reply all» with their funny responses? You may be shocked: They did not.
Overnight, #Bellogate was the UK’s No. 1 trend on Twitter.
Daniel was the first to make this gag.
It didn’t take long for someone to sign up to a porn talent site using the all-students email address.
By 1am this morning, «bellogate» had its own OkCupid account.
And membership of Sarah Palin’s website.
And an account on Pornhub.
And perhaps most controversially, had signed up to the official Coldplay mailing list.
Maybe because the band’s most famous song sounds a bit like «bello».
The end result: This is what the students’ inboxes looked like this morning.
The university helpdesk warned people not to abuse the all-hands email address. But even that warning got mocked:
The person who sent the original email popped up again this morning.
One wag suggested the university IT staff look here for someone to help.
You could only sympathise with the people asking for the emails to stop.
A psychoanalysis mailing list had this effect a few years back — good test of thinking skills #BELLOGATE
11:21 PM — 08 Oct 2014
Someone used it as opportunity to look for love.
And buried amongst the madness was this confession.
Update — 12.05pm: The university has posted this series of updates, in which it said the email list has been closed and that students have received an apology.