Lesson 10: Business Letters

Business Letters

Despite the ever-lasting role played by the telephone and fax machine in the business world today, the business letters remains a very effective, popular and important medium of communication. This is likely to remain so for the following simple reasons:

• It is one of the cheapest forms of communication
• The letter serves as a permanent record of a transaction, agreement, warning or enquiry.
• A letter conveys a professional and business-like impression which gives your message more weight.
• A letter gives the business person time to think before replying. This allows a powerful, well thought-out and much more effective message to be formulated.
• Letters can be used to do business in places where no telephones or fax machines are available

The ordinary business letter can be used effectively for a variety of different purposes:

• to persuade: e.g. sales letter
• to express an opinion: e.g. letter to the press
• to get something done: e.g. letter of complaint
• to supply somebody else with information: e.g. letter of invitation/letter of application
• to obtain information: e.g. letter of enquiry