How to write a good business email?

[Tina Lee]

I am now doing foreign trade. Every day i get some inquiries from customers, and i reply them. No reply. I also send some follow-up emails. But still no reply. I don't know why. Any suggestions about this? How to let your email attract the attention of your customer and reply you?

 

[LicensedToTrade]

A basic grasp of the english language would be a great starting point.

Typically if you have managed to get a prospective customer to contact you in the first place you are off to a good start and they are there for the losing. Your response doesn't need to be full of gimmicks or flash, it just needs to address their enquiry clearly and concisely and provide them with a route to progress their interest in your company.

If you are struggling with english then it would be worth employing a native english speaker to deal with enquiries on your behalf either on a full-time or adhoc basis.

 

[Tina Lee]

A basic grasp of the english language would be a great starting point.

Typically if you have managed to get a prospective customer to contact you in the first place you are off to a good start and they are there for the losing. Your response doesn't need to be full of gimmicks or flash, it just needs to address their enquiry clearly and concisely and provide them with a route to progress their interest in your company.

If you are struggling with english then it would be worth employing a native english speaker to deal with enquiries on your behalf either on a full-time or adhoc basis.

I know every day customers receive large amount of quotation letters from supplier and i also know simple and clear response is ok. And i also do like that. But few response from customers. So i am confused. What kind of quotation will attract customers most?

 

[cnbuynet]

i also face the same question

 

[Business Binocular]

Hi

With the increase in the use of instant messaging services, E-mails are more or less used solely for business purposes. So it has to sound formal. Keep your message clear and concise. The Subject line of your email should sum up the message you want to convey.

Start with a pleasant greeting and come straight to the point. Beating about the bush will only make your client impatient. Use simple English words. The others are right. If you have trouble communicating in simple, good English, you can get help. Bad English is an instant turn off.

The formatting also matters. Do NOT use upper case. In e-mail language, using upper case suggests that you are yelling at the recipient. Do not use different colors. Apply an average font, use the default black and leave sufficient white space. If your message is long, tight paragraphs would discourage the readers.

Close with a line requesting them to revert to you as soon as possible.

Hope this was helpful. Please get back to me if you have more questions regarding this or related subjects!

 

[Tina Lee]

Thank you so much for your message. Quite useful. I will pay attention to these points.

By the way, one more quesion, for the quotation letter, an attracting title is very important. I usually make the title like these:
1) receipter's first name+here's our quotation for + product name
2) receipter's company name+quotation for+product name

Are these good titles? Will these catch the eye of the receipter? Any other suggestions?

 

[davek17]

We get a lot of emails from international enquiries. The current state of the GBP, EUR and USD mean there are a lot of countries out there right now that are finding it cheap to buy in our currency.

We get a lot of timewasters though and my points are:

Check the email and signature. If its from a yahoo, hotmail or gmail then forget them. they are phishing for an email, a fraudulent customer looking to pay with a robbed credit card or they are a competitor pricing you up!

Look for a good signature with company details, numbers, valid website etc etc. These are the serious ones.

The other thing I would say is be aware of people just fishing for sanity quotes. We are very good at spotting these and asking the right questions back so we don;t waste our time sneding quotes out that we never here back from. Pick you customers!!

 

[Tina Lee]

Check the email and signature. If its from a yahoo, hotmail or gmail then forget them. they are phishing for an email, a fraudulent customer looking to pay with a robbed credit card or they are a competitor pricing you up!

Hi davek, to some degree, i agree with you. But i also have customers who use a yahoo, hotmail or gmail. There are such real customers.I usually use google to search some details of the customer to see whether it is trustworthy.

In addition, do you usually add some questions after quotation letter? And what are good questions which will push the receipter to reply you?

 

[davek17]

Hi Tina

Don't get me wrong, depsite years of experience we still get the same problems as you, just hopefully less these days!. We are B2B here though not B2C so the Gmail comment might not be relevent if you are selling B2C, B2C doesn't usually have a quote process though so I assumed you were B2B?

Our issue is we get customers who have been working on a project for weeks and are then looking to "sanity quote" their reseller at the end. We hate doing this as it generally wastes our time and it is also not fair to the market or our competitors who have spent weeks of time and effort on a project only to lose it to someone at the end.

We always ask questions about their project, we ask where they are in terms of rollout, what devices they have seen, and we are bold enough to ask if they have been talking to someone else. Even if this checks out we then ask the manufacturers if there is any activity going on. You have to be brash and filter out the time wasters to your business.

 

[Olivia from lanyardtimes]

My question is how to write a development letter which would attract clients.

 

[Tina Lee]

Hi davek,


Our products are different from yours. But we also hope to[FONT='&#23435] end [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000][FONT='Verdana']customer who can make the final decision. Our aim is to find the factories who need our products. But lots of inquiries are from trading company which always compare the prices from different supplier. Although they agree to buy from you but still keep searching. Even though order has been made, they still could cancel the order when they get a lower price. This is the common situation we face. [/FONT]


I also want to filter out the time wasters to our business. But some pretend to be interested in our company and our products, however, at the last moment they say no. I have such experience for several times. So sad.

 

[Karolina]

Hi,
If I could just add, it's always good to divide the text into paragraphs and give them nice headings. Sometimes it's the only thing that the person reads, so they should be catchy and informative.

Also, to emphasize some parts of the text you may put the most important bits in bold. I think it's not a bad idea to ask questions, it will make your e-mail more interactive.

 

[Tina Lee]

Hi,
If I could just add, it's always good to divide the text into paragraphs and give them nice headings. Sometimes it's the only thing that the person reads, so they should be catchy and informative.

Also, to emphasize some parts of the text you may put the most important bits in bold. I think it's not a bad idea to ask questions, it will make your e-mail more interactive.

Hi Karolina, thanks for your reply.
Some customers told me that it usually takes 2 or 3 seconds for them to reach each email which they are unfamiliar with. So i think the paragragh shouldn't be too long. Simple is ok i think. Besides, i think price is first factor which will influence customer's decision. What do you think?

 

[Karolina]

Of course you're right, keeping it simple is essential! The price is also important but sometimes it doesn't convince the client, that depends what kind of a price you are offering.

You could do some research on similar products or customers' opinions about the products and try to think like your clients. Ask yourself: what is that they value the most in such products?, what is the most important feature they are looking for? and how will they benefit form my offer?

Then emphasize those answers in your e-mail. It should be short (as you've said) and well-organized with the most important things standing out. It's not a bad idea to give it some personal touch, like there's an actual person writing.

 

[APC Nexday Overnite Ltd]

Which of your suppliers/potential suppliers emails have you replied to?

Copy some of their stuff perhaps?

 

[Tina Lee]

Of course you're right, keeping it simple is essential! The price is also important but sometimes it doesn't convince the client, that depends what kind of a price you are offering.

You could do some research on similar products or customers' opinions about the products and try to think like your clients. Ask yourself: what is that they value the most in such products?, what is the most important feature they are looking for? and how will they benefit form my offer?

Then emphasize those answers in your e-mail. It should be short (as you've said) and well-organized with the most important things standing out. It's not a bad idea to give it some personal touch, like there's an actual person writing.

Karolina, you refer to one good point. i can't agree more. Yes, i should act myself as the customer and see what can convince me to buy such kind of products. I know customer will consider severl aspects before make final decision. Price, quality or service are all important factors.

 

[Tina Lee]

Which of your suppliers/potential suppliers emails have you replied to?

Copy some of their stuff perhaps?

There is a possiblility that customers are not familiar with these emails which i copy. This may just the opposite to what i wish.

 

[Karolina]

Practice makes perfect, as they say I hope you'll be more and more successful in writing the emails!

 

[Tina Lee]

Practice makes perfect, as they say I hope you'll be more and more successful in writing the emails!

Yes, experience is the best teacher. I should practice more. I am still on the way. I have found the good way at this moment. Keeping learing...