How to Write a Business Letter
A 1915 handbook printed in Buffalo for use in offices, schools and as a general reference, by a writer who ran a school for correspondents at a company selling to about a million families a year.
What it is
A 1915 handbook printed in Buffalo for use in offices, schools and as a general reference, by a writer who ran a school for correspondents at a company selling to about a million families a year. The introduction argues that the $5,000 a salesman costs each year in salary and travel, spent on a correspondent instead, puts a firm in touch with fifty times as many people. Wiers lists nine requirements of a good correspondent, from tact to knowing the product, then covers spelling, brevity, courtesy, clearness, sincerity and sentiment. The most practical chapter sets wordy sentences taken from real letters above their cut-down revisions. The rest covers the parts of a letter, form letters, concessions, and model letters for orders, requests, inquiries, dunning, complaints, recommendations and sales, ending with a reply to a girl who asked the company for free candy.
Why read it now
Most of the advice survives because it is about customers, not letters. Retention: the first order starts the relationship and the second is where profit begins, which is what repeat-purchase and subscription businesses measure today. Complaints: put the refund or replacement in the first paragraph, never argue, and return money with no strings, a rule his razor-blade story makes concrete. Brevity: a few lines for trivial matters, full detail for a complaint, because what is small to you is big to the customer. The revision chapter, wordy line above plain line, is still the fastest way to train writers, and plain-language research agrees that readers understand and prefer the plain version. Product knowledge: a young correspondent who answered a coffee complaint badly, because his mother disliked the coffee, wrote well once he had tested it himself. What has dated: the sermonizing tone, the assumptions about women customers, and model dunning letters that threaten sooner than his own courtesy rules would allow. Use: collect twenty real replies from your support or sales team, write the tighter version under each, and train new staff on the pairs in Arabic and English.
Passages worth keeping
The first order gets your customer started with you, and that is about all. The second order is the beginning of your profit, but whether it ever comes or not will depend upon the treatment you give your customer when handling his first order.
الطلب الأول مجرد بداية، والربح يبدأ مع الطلب الثاني، وهذا يتوقف على طريقة معاملة العميل في طلبه الأول.
The truth is that what may seem small to you is often big to him.
ما تراه أمرًا صغيرًا قد يكون كبيرًا عند العميل، فلا تختصر الرد على شكواه لأنها تبدو لك تافهة.
You must live, eat and sleep with a subject before you can write a telling letter about it.
لا يكتب رسالة مقنعة إلا من عاش مع المنتج وعرفه من الداخل، ولذلك يفشل الكاتب البعيد عن العمل مهما كان أجره.
When you are making an allowance or any other concession, see to it that your advice concerning it is couched in the most cheerful terms and put in the first paragraph of your letter.
إذا قدمت للعميل تعويضًا أو تنازلًا فابدأ به في أول الرسالة وبعبارة ودودة، ثم اشرح ما تريد بعد ذلك.
If a customer wants his money back, send it to him quickly, and be sure that whatever you say about the refund has no strings attached to it.
إذا طلب العميل استرداد ماله فأعده إليه بسرعة، ولا تربط الاسترداد بأي شرط أو عتاب.
What it teaches best
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