Write It Well

If people only remember one thing from our Effective E-Mail workshop, they usually remember our tips and tools for crafting effective subject lines - that’s how important they are to effectively communicating with e-mail.  There’s a great article on Marketing Profs’ site about subject lines.  I agree with some of the comments that open rates sometimes buck logic.  Here are Write It Well’s guidelines for writing effective subject lines:

1. Make them descriptive - general subject lines like “follow up” or “meeting” won’t get your boss’ attention.
2. Make them specific - again, include the relevant details.  “List of supplies needed for tomorrow” instead of “supplies” will help your reader. 
3. Make them concise and clear - same thing here.  “thx 4 yr help -I missed the bus” is neither concise or clear.
4. Change the subject line with the subject changes.  If the subject changes, summarize the thread and re-name the e-mail. 

If you’re sending e-mail to someone who is likely to read your message on their PDA, remember that your reader will only see the first part of your message and if it’s a long one, they might miss whatever you included at the bottom of the message.  Make sure that your main point is at the beginning of any message and if there is more than one point, summarize your main points at the beginning. 

Here’s an example… I sent an e-mail to a client asking three important questions including one about the location for an upcoming training.  She wrote back and offered me three paragraphs of detailed directions at the beginning of the message.  The problem was that I was reading my e-mail from my PDA so I couldn’t tell if she had answered any of my other questions because I could only see the first part of the message. 

If she had started her message by telling me that she was answering my questions and would include directions at the end of the message, I would have known exactly what the e-mail included.  Make sure that your virtual communication is virtually complete and easy for your reader, wherever they are! 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report called “Writing, Teens, and Technology.”  In brief, the report finds that ”teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.” 

More and more professionals are entering the workforce without the ability to express themselves clearly in writing. According to The National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, schools and colleges today neglect writing and, as a result, college graduates enter the workforce with poor writing skills.

We agree with Pew’s survey participants; writing is a fundamental business skill. In fact, a recent survey by the Commission found that half of all companies assess writing skills during the hiring process and when making promotion decisions.  That’s reason enough to improve your business writing skills today. 

According to Xobni, a San Francisco-based start-up that has developed an Outlook add-on that helps you manage your e-mail, by 2009, workers are expected to spend 40 percent of their time managing e-mail. Xobni’s goal is to make this time as efficient and painless as possible. We were invited to be part of the beta and we’re eagerly trying it out. In fact, we’re now spending about 50 percent of our time managing e-mail because we’re trying to figure out just what the software does. Thoughts thus far? Well, other than the fact we now spend more time with our email, we like the graphs showing us when people send us email. Helps us know when we should be out of the office to avoid certain people. Threaded conversations are interesting, including a summary of all attachments you’ve ever sent, by contact. We’ll check back in a few weeks with our full evaluation. In the mean time, if you want an invite let us know. We have a few to give out.

And don’t forget, the ability to write clear, concise, compelling e-mail messages becomes more important every day. Write It Well’s business writing book, E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, offers tips and tools for using your e-mail time more efficiently.

If you want your e-mail to be read, get to the point right away. Write It Well, the business writing experts, conducted a survey which proves that when the message isn’t clear and professinal, busy readers might skip or delete your e-mail without reading it.

People expect business e-mail to be written professionally. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said that it is important to write clear, professional e-mail.  In fact, 88 percent reported that e-mail with typos or mistakes in grammar, punctuation, or spelling leaves a poor impression of the writer - and the writer’s organization. 

 If a business e-mail is not clear, there is a good chance that it won’t be read. More than 85 percent of respondents reported that they are likely to skip over or delete a message without reading it if the main point isn’t clear right at the beginning.

 If the subject line is not clear, recipients might not open the message.  Fifty-three percent of the respondents said they usually skip over or delete messages from people they do not know if the subject line is too vague.

For tips and tools for improving your e-mail writing skills, read Write It Well’s book about business e-mail: E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide. 

More people are reading and writing their e-mail on the move, using mobile hand-held devices such as BlackBerries or cell phones instead of computers.  There are significant advantages to being able to read and write e-mail from anywhere but there are some problems.  Here are some tips for using e-mail with hand-held devices:

1.  Keep messages short.  When you’re sending a message to someone who often reads and responds from a hand-held device, keep your message short and to the point and make sure that the most important message is at the beginning.

2.  Visualize your message.  Remember that the person who reads your message might read it on a computer screen.  Think about what your message will look like if it’s full of abbreviations, misspelled words, and grammatical errors.  Don’t forget that your message could be forwarded to others. 

3.  If you receive a message that needs a thoughtful response or one better composed on your computer, wait to respond until you’re back at your computer.  If you want to, send a quick response letting the sender know that you got the message and will respond when you have an opportunity.  It might be more efficient — and effective — to make a phone call.  

4.  Always describe attachments.  When sending e-mail to people on the move, always describe attachments (briefly) because they might not be able to see them right away.  (In fact, it’s always a good idea to describe attachments). 

5.  Turn it off!  To keep e-mail from engulfing your life, resist the urge to constantly check your hand-held for new messages.   

During a business writing workshop yesterday, a participant asked me if he should answer most of the reader’s questions when writing.  “Well,”  I said, surprised, “of course, but why wouldn’t you answer ALL of your reader’s questions?” 

He couldn’t think of a reason not to answer ALL of the reader’s questions.  Can you?

Whenever you write, especially if you’re requesting something, think about your reader’s likely questions and answer ALL of them.  If you don’t, one of these things will happen:

1.  your reader will delete or skip over your message

2.  your reader will say “no” to your request

3.  (if you’re lucky) your reader will ask you to answer the rest of his or her questions

Always take the time to think about your reader’s likely questions and answer ALL of them.  It will save your and your reader valuable time. 

As a business owner, you know the importance of developing and maintaining positive customer relationships.  In fact, most businesses do a pretty good job when dealing with customers face-to-face.  But too often, business owners and their employees fail to recognize that the written communications they send can significantly affect how customers feel about the business.

E-mail and letters that fail to answer customers’ questions or address their concerns, are hard to read, are abrupt in tone, or contain errors convey the message that you don’t place much value on the customer’s business.  Poor writing can also cause frustrating misunderstandings that waste valuable time and resources.  It’s a worthwhile investment of time and money to make sure that every e-mail and letter your customers receive is friendly, helpful, and conveys a positive image of your business. Here are some suggestions to help you start improving your customer service writing today.

Establish standards for “good” writing.  Of course, your standards - the criteria for written communications to your customers - will reflect your own business. But to meet the basic standards for good written communication, do the following:

• State the main point clearly, right at the beginning. People often read only the first few lines of an e-mail message or a letter before deciding whether it’s worth their time. Get your most important message out right away, even it’s bad news. Then follow with the details that support and/or explain that main point.
• Respond clearly and directly to the customer’s specific questions and concerns. Customers who have asked you a question or raised a concern aren’t interested in hearing how much you value their business; show them that you do by answering their questions and addressing their concerns. If someone asks a question, focus on answering it. If someone has experienced a problem, focus on what you will do to resolve it, not on why it happened or who was at fault.
• Use the right tone. Most people are careful not to be rude or abrupt when speaking to customers on the phone or face-to-face. But the same people sometimes fail to understand that the tone of their written communications can either reach out to customers or push them away. Especially when writing e-mail, avoid an abrupt or overly casual tone by writing complete sentences and using ordinary language instead of pompous language and jargon. Be friendly and polite. NEVER use all caps - it feels as if you’re shouting. Check the tone by reading what you have written before you send it.
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short and proofread for errors. Long sentences and paragraphs are difficult to read, especially on a computer screen. Errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling make your message seem less credible and convey a sloppy image of your business.

Provide training to your staff.  Even employees with an extensive knowledge of your business and excellent customer service skills often lack the skills needed to communicate clearly in writing.  That might have been acceptable before e-mail became such a key part of doing business, but these days, everyone needs to be able to write.  Here are some ideas for helping employees improve their writing:

• Send them to a workshop. If writing to customers is a significant part of your employees’ jobs, it’s probably worth the expense of sending them to a good writing workshop. Choose a workshop that provides practical “how-to” techniques, is tailored for the specific group, and provides opportunities for job-related practice
• Give them a self-directed learning program. Self-directed learning, such as a self-paced learning workbook or a computer-based learning program, can be a good alternative to a workshop for motivated self-starters.
• Hire a coach. A business writing coach can work with individuals or small groups to help people improve their business communications by focusing on the day-to-day writing that people need to do.

Develop flexible templates to replace inflexible form letters. In any business, people need to write the same kinds of communications again and again.  Templates save time and increase the chances that written communications meet your standards.  But using templates successfully requires more than replacing dates, names, etc.  Make sure that you and your staff know how to know when to use a template, are able to choose the right template, and can make the necessary changes so that the e-mail or letter communicates clearly to a specific customer in a specific situation.

Periodically assess your customer communications. At least twice a year, take a close look at the e-mail and letters you send to customers. Read a representative sample of the e-mail and letters you have sent as if you were the customers to whom they were addressed.  Send out a survey asking customers how well your written communications are meeting their needs - encourage people to respond by offering a reward, such as a one-time discount a product or service. If necessary, redo your standards, update templates, and provide staff with additional training to make sure that all your written communications meet - or exceeds - your standards for excellent customer service. 

Do you remember when we wrote press releases, printed them, stuffed them into envelopes, and mailed them? Now we write them, format them for the screen, and send them electronically. Write It Well’s new release is posted on PR Web where business editors interested in stories about business communications today will find it.

Electronic dissemination means that we can get the news out much faster. That’s good news. The bad news is that members of the press get a lot more news than they used to. How do we get their attention?

Getting their attention is the cornerstone of our writing skills training programs (books, onsite training, online training): always state your main point clearly at the beginning of the message.

Think about the journalistic triangle (an inverted triangle) which is described in our book, E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, p. 20. Newspaper editors know that people often scan only the headline and first part of an article. They also know that the final paragraph or two might need to be chopped off to save space. That’s why they answer their readers’ most improtant question right at the beginiing. We need to keep that in mind when we’re writing to editors too.

Keep the journalistic triangle in mind when you write. Putting the most important information first gets the main point across right away and gives readers a context for the details that are coming.

We hope that you’ll read our entire press release but if you stop after the first paragraph, we hope you got the most important message!

Notice anything new today? That’s right, we’ve changed our site. New look. New features. Faster. One hundred percent organic. Let us know what you think.