Postal etiquette does not require perfectly formatted text. This may take too long. The main thing is to avoid what we will write about below - this will be enough for a start.
Sending a non-urgent email marked “urgent”
“It’s like the fairy tale about the boy who constantly cried wolf.” If you abuse the “urgent” tag, people will stop answering your emails. And a truly important letter may go unnoticed because of this.
Familiarity
Yes, the tone of your letter can reflect your relationship with the recipient. However, you may be considered unprofessional if you allow yourself to be too informal in your correspondence. Avoid excessive use of exclamation marks, emoticons, colored text, unusual fonts, and excessive brevity of messages.
Be especially careful if you have to work with people different ages, with a language barrier or with those who prefer more traditional form communication.
Too dry tone
At the same time, being a robot is also not worth it. It's okay if you show your character or enthusiasm in your letters - within reasonable limits.
Reply All
Working Email exists not for entertainment, but for communication. So if you're replying to an email sent to a group of people, think twice before clicking "reply all." To do this, your answer must be extremely important to everyone.
Sending copies without permission
Sharing other people's information with others is, to say the least, impermissible. It doesn't matter whether you send a client a copy of a letter from your boss who responded to him in any way, or include one employee in personal correspondence with another. Few people might like it if you send a copy of a letter without their consent.
Send BCC
Sending BCC breeds mistrust. If you want to send a letter to someone, and this person, in theory, should not participate in work correspondence, copy the text and send it as a separate letter.
Unspecified email subject
Subjects like “It’s Me,” “Hello,” or “FYI” (FYI) simply don’t grab attention. The person will not understand what is being said and will not want to respond to the letter. Work-related letters should be clear and concise. The recipient is more likely to open the email if he understands what you want from him.
Sending too many personal emails
You can sometimes use jokes, touching stories and motivational quotes to cheer someone up. But people get tired of this quickly, no matter what your intentions were in writing them. If you send too many personal emails, they will simply be set to auto-deletion.
Be rude
You shouldn’t send letters full of poison, because people will remember it when the opportunity arises. Instead, write a letter and leave it in “Drafts” for two days. Then you can come back to it and edit it, removing the barbs. This way you will achieve what you want faster. In addition, you will be treated as a very patient and thoughtful professional.
Stupid email address
If you are sending an email to a client, employee, or potential employer, do not use email with an “unprofessional” title. If there is anything in the mail title that purports to be witty or contains sexual or vulgar connotations (something like [email protected]), you run the risk of making your interlocutor feel negative towards you from the very beginning. Create a separate email for purely professional needs.
Typos
The fact that the email was sent from an iPhone is not an excuse for sending sloppy emails. If you make more than one mistake in your letter, it may be considered unprofessional. If this is a very important letter, and you are in a hurry to get somewhere, then try to at least check it before sending it.
Sending emails early in the morning
Most people, when receiving letters, look at the time they were sent. If the letter is sent too early, you may be viewed negatively. At a minimum, you will be considered a workaholic without personal life. It's worse if you are considered intrusive. If inspiration awakens you at night, write a letter, save it in “Drafts” and send it during working hours.
Too many punctuation marks
People sometimes get too carried away and use a lot of exclamation points. The result may seem immature or too emotional to some. Don't abuse it!!!
Non-professional fonts
The Purple Comic Sans font has its own scope. In business, it is better to use classic fonts, colors and sizes. Your letters should be easy to read.
Typically a font size of 10 or 12 is used. Easy-to-read fonts like Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman are best for the job. Preferable color is black.
Letter too long
Most people spend seconds, not minutes, reading emails. Many people simply skim over the text with their eyes, so write your letters based on this. People find it difficult to read large paragraphs - break the text into smaller blocks. Highlights and bulleted lists are much easier to read. You can also highlight the main points in bold or italics, but do not do this often.
You have probably already noticed thatupon receiving letters from some authorsin the “to” section there is a list of several dozen emails different people. Moreover, neither you nor these people gave their consent for these emails to be “exposed.” Naturally, some of the recipients will unsubscribe from this mailing list (we are all tired of the flow of spam to our emails). But one thing is certain - all recipients will treat the author of the newsletter as an unprofessional person. And they are unlikely to agree to accept his offer.
How can you do it so as not to send a letter to each addressee separately and at the same time “not to shine before everyone else”?
Almost any email service allows you to do this.
Let's consider this opportunity using the example of the most popular email address for business mailings: gmail.com
Typically, you use the Compose window to send an email. By clicking on it, you see a new “New message” window, into which you insert everything that is necessary to create and send the letter itself.
We usually insert the emails of our recipients into the “Recipients” window.
Copy means "exact copy". This field is used when you simply want to send an email to someone who is not the primary recipient. This way, you can keep the person in the loop while letting them know that they don't have to respond to the email. But all recipients of this letter see each other’s addresses (and even names).
BCC means "an exact hidden copy." It works the same as Cc, but this field hides all recipient addresses.
Thus, using this field is one of the best ways to send a letter a large number people and maintain confidentiality. This means you won’t ruin your relationship with them. Using this feature, you can insert up to 30 emails. This means that with one click of a button you can send this letter to 30 recipients at once, without showing their emails.
And, if necessary, you can insert a picture into the body of the letter ( 4 ) or attach a file ( 5 ).
It is this mail that gives maximum amount editing capabilities.
Similarly, you can send a letter to several recipients at the same time via yandex.ru mail.
Click on “Write” and then in the “To” window ( 1 ) insert the email of the first recipient, and then select the “Copy” function ( 2 ) or "Bcc" ( 3 ). Depending on whether you want all recipients of your letter to see all emails or preserve their right to confidentiality of addresses, select one of the functions. To add each next email to the list, you need to click on the button with the image of a man with a plus sign in front of it ( 4 ). Then you can select your regular recipients from the drop-down list or enter their emails manually.
Pictures can be downloaded from Yandex Disk and files can be attached as usual.
Click on the “Write” button, a window appears in which when you click with the mouse in the “To” window ( 1 ), a drop-down list appears with a list of your regular recipients ( 2 ). You can choose from this list what you need. Or just insert the desired email destination manually.
If you actively use email when communicating with clients and colleagues, it's rare that a day goes by without copies. They are an integral part work correspondence. Therefore, many clients, moving to Omnidesk from the good old post office, often asked about Cc and Bcc support. Before this functionality appeared, we received 47 (!) requests to add it. The figure is impressive, because about your needs and questions in best case scenario 5-7% of those who want to write write.
Before we get into the details of our implementation of copies, let's understand what they are.
Types of email recipients
To: (to whom) - the main recipient of the letter.Cc: (carbon copy) - secondary recipients of the letter to whom a copy is sent. They see and know about each other's presence.
Bcc: (blind carbon copy) - hidden email recipients whose addresses are not shown to other recipients.
Examples of using copies
A. The user asked for help and asked to send answers to both work and personal email. You indicate his personal address in the copy (Cc) so that he can respond from any address and see the entire correspondence in each of them.b. The client paid for consulting/support/development, and you regularly communicate with their employees. You add it to the copy (Cc) so that it receives all your responses, can intervene in the correspondence at any time and evaluate the quality of the services you provide.
V. The manager wants to monitor support communications with VIP clients. In requests from these clients, the manager is added to the blind carbon copy (Bcc) so that he always receives your responses (with the correspondence history).
The beauty is that the client does not know about the “surveillance”, and the manager can answer you personally and, for example, make a remark :)
G. A client contacts you to discuss receiving a discount and payment methods. He immediately adds his accountant to the copy (Cc) so that he can follow the progress of communication and take over the baton at the right time.
How did we implement copy support?
The examples above describe only some of the scenarios that clients “sold” to us, arguing the need to support copies on the service. We implemented all the standard points, but did not forget to add a few useful features. Let's look at everything in order.Basic functionality
1) To the right of the “Recipient” field name we have placed two links for adding copies - “CC” and “Bcc”.
2) When you click on “Cc”, the “Copy” field appears and the “Cc” link disappears.
3) When you click on "Bcc", the "Bcc" field appears and the "Bcc" link disappears.
5) When an employee adds the address to the normal copy (Cc), his response is sent to the primary address in the Recipient field and to the address in the Cc field. In this case, both users see that the letter was delivered to two addresses. Each of them can respond to both an employee and an employee + another user.
6) When an employee adds the address to hidden copy (Bcc), his response is sent to the primary address in the “Recipient” field and to the address in the “Bcc” field. In this case, the main user sees that the letter was sent only to him, so his response can only be sent to the employee.
In this case, the user can see from a hidden copy who the main recipient was and can send the letter to both the employee and the employee + the main recipient.
7) Copy support also works in the reverse direction. If a user sends a request (or a new response to an ongoing conversation) and adds another address to Cc, we automatically enter this address in the “Cc” field so that when the employee responds, the letter is sent to both addresses.
Useful tips
8) All changes in the “Recipient”, “Cc” and “Bcc” fields are recorded in the activity history.
9) For each request, we remember all the addresses that were indicated in the “Recipient”, “Cc” and “Bcc” fields. Therefore, after removing an address from a field, it can be easily returned. Just click in the desired field, and we will offer to select an address from the drop-down list.
10) When a BCC user responds to an employee and the primary user, their email is added to the request as a regular reply. If he responds only to an employee, then his letter added to the request as a note, which is not visible to the main user (when viewing correspondence regarding a request in your account).
11) We have added a condition to the rules for incoming requests “Copy (Cc) of appeal”, so that you can track the presence of a specific address (or domain) in the copy and automatically perform the necessary actions.
12) Two new actions have appeared in all types of rules - "Add to copy" And "Add to BCC" in case you need to add addresses to copies when the request meets the conditions of the rule.
Business communication is its own world with its own laws. A lot depends on how we comply with these laws: the impression we make on colleagues and partners, work productivity, and even career advancement.
A special place in business communication occupied by business correspondence, which is the daily responsibility of most office workers and not only. The ability to conduct business correspondence correctly can be a good help for concluding profitable deals and building your business image.
Let's look at some features business letter. So, business correspondence is:
- use of template phrases and clichés
- emotional neutrality,
- semantic accuracy and conciseness of presentation,
- well-constructed argumentation.
Business correspondence to English language– this is the same set of rules and clichés, some of which we recommend to use by everyone who works with foreign partners or in international companies. We offer you several useful phrases that will decorate your business correspondence. These phrases will emphasize your professionalism and help shape your image business man. Let's begin!
1. Please find attached
Let's start with the classics. Often you have to attach various documents or other files to a letter. In order to notify the recipient about the presence of an attachment, this phrase is perfect. After all, the word “Attachment” in translation means “attachment”. The phrase should be used at the end of the letter.
Here are a couple of examples of use:
- Please find attached my portfolio.
- Please find attached copy of the agreement/contract.
2. I have forwarded
This phrase can be used if you need to forward an email to other recipients. To notify the recipient about this, the phrase “I have forwarded” is perfect. For example:
- I have forwarded Anna’s CV to you.
- I have forwarded John's email to you.
3. I've cc'ed
A person uninitiated into all the secrets of the peculiarities of business correspondence may not understand what this strange abbreviation means. But we are professionals. “I’ve cc’ed” is an abbreviation that stands for I have carbon copied. The phrase means "to copy someone to receive letters."
So if you need to inform someone that you have copied other recipients, feel free to use this phrase. Eg:
- I've cc'ed Sara on this email.
- I’ve cc’ed Jack and Jimmy on these emails.
As for abbreviations that cannot be used in business correspondence, an exception is usually made for this case.
4. For further details
This phrase is a proven way to politely end your letter in English. “For further details” means “for more detailed information”, “in more detail”. Examples of using:
- For further details contact me any time.
- For further details write to our Sales-manager.
Another phrase that will help you finish politely is “If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.” Translated, this means “If you have any questions, feel free to write to me.”
5. I look forward to
The phrase “look forward” means “to look forward.” So if you are looking forward to a response or some other action from the recipient, then it would be quite appropriate to use this phrase. Eg:
- I look forward to your answer.
- I'm looking forward to your reply.
The phrase is best used at the end of the letter.
When writing a letter, you need to be polite even when you don't really feel like it. The ability to write competent letters in any situation reflects your professionalism, good manners and knowledge business ethics. In conclusion, let us remind you that in business correspondence you must show precision of wording and impeccable literacy. The use of abbreviations is also unacceptable (with rare exceptions).
Write emails in English correctly, dear friends! Good luck!
One of the most popular functions on the site is the application or order form, the data from which is sent by email to the site owner. As a rule, such forms are simple and consist of two or three fields for data entry. How to create such an order form? This requires the use of HTML markup language and PHP programming language.
The HTML markup language itself is simple; you just need to figure out how and where to put certain tags. With the PHP programming language, things are a little more complicated.
For a programmer, creating such a form is not difficult, but for an HTML layout designer, some actions may seem difficult.
Create a data submission form in html
The first line will be as follows
Now let's put everything together.
Now let's make the fields in the form mandatory. We have the following code:
Create a file that accepts data from the HTML form
This will be a file called send.php
In the file, at the first stage, you need to accept data from the post array. To do this, we create two variables:
$fio = $_POST["fio"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
Variable names in PHP are preceded by a $ sign and a semicolon is placed at the end of each line. $_POST is an array into which data from the form is sent. In the html form, the sending method is specified as method="post". So, two variables from the html form are accepted. To protect your site, you need to pass these variables through several filters - php functions.
The first function will convert all the characters that the user will try to add to the form:
In this case, new variables are not created in php, but existing ones are used. What the filter will do is transform the character "<" в "<". Также он поступить с другими символами, встречающимися в html коде.
The second function decodes the URL if the user tries to add it to the form.
$fio = urldecode($fio);
$email = urldecode($email);
With the third function we will remove spaces from the beginning and end of the line, if any:
$fio = trim($fio);
$email = trim($email);
There are other functions that allow you to filter php variables. Their use depends on how concerned you are that an attacker will try to add program code to this html email submission form.
Validation of data transferred from HTML form to PHP file
In order to check whether this code works and whether data is being transferred, you can simply display it on the screen using the echo function:
echo $fio;
echo "
";
echo $fio;
The second line here is needed to separate the output of php variables into different lines.
Sending received data from an HTML form to email using PHP
To send data by email, you need to use the mail function in PHP.
mail("to which address to send", "subject of the letter", "Message (body of the letter)","From: from which email the letter is sent \r\n");
For example, you need to send data to the email of the site owner or manager [email protected].
The subject of the letter should be clear, and the message of the letter should contain what the user specified in the HTML form.
mail(" [email protected]", "Application from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n");
It is necessary to add a condition that will check whether the form was sent using PHP to the specified email address.
if (mail(" [email protected]", "Order from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n"))
{
echo "message sent successfully";
) else (
}
Thus, the program code of the send.php file, which will send the HTML form data to email, will look like this:
$fio = $_POST["fio"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$fio = htmlspecialchars($fio);
$email = htmlspecialchars($email);
$fio = urldecode($fio);
$email = urldecode($email);
$fio = trim($fio);
$email = trim($email);
//echo $fio;
//echo "
";
//echo $email;
if (mail(" [email protected]", "Application from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n"))
( echo "message sent successfully";
) else (
echo "errors occurred while sending the message";
}?>
Three lines to check if the data is being transferred to the file are commented out. If necessary, they can be removed, since they were needed only for debugging.
We place the HTML and PHP code for submitting the form in one file
In the comments to this article, many people ask the question of how to make sure that both the HTML form and the PHP code for sending data to email are in one file, and not two.
To implement this work, you need to place the HTML code of the form in the send.php file and add a condition that will check for the presence of variables in the POST array (this array is sent from the form). That is, if the variables in the array do not exist, then you need to show the user the form. Otherwise, you need to receive data from the array and send it to the recipient.
Let's see how to change the PHP code in the send.php file:
//check if variables exist in the POST array
if(!isset($_POST["fio"]) and !isset($_POST["email"]))(
?> ) else (
//show the form
$fio = $_POST["fio"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$fio = htmlspecialchars($fio);
$email = htmlspecialchars($email);
$fio = urldecode($fio);
$email = urldecode($email);
$fio = trim($fio);
$email = trim($email);
if (mail(" [email protected]", "Application from the site", "Full name:".$fio.". E-mail: ".$email ,"From: [email protected]\r\n"))(
echo "Message sent successfully";
) else (
echo "Errors occurred while sending the message";
}
}
?>
We check the existence of a variable in the POST array with the isset() PHP function. An exclamation mark before this function in a condition means negation. That is, if the variable does not exist, then we need to show our form. If I hadn’t put the exclamation point, the condition would literally mean “if exists, then show the form.” And this is wrong in our case. Naturally, you can rename it to index.php. If you rename the file, do not forget to rename the file name in the line
