Well drafted and well-structured business letter greatly contributes to business success. Business letter helps to create new relationships and to strengthen existing relationships. Therefore such letter should fulfill certain conditions or qualities.
The Essential Qualities of Business Letter
- Simplicity of language: Business letter should be written in easy, simple and artistic language so that the reader can easily understand the inner meaning of the message. It should be free from ambiguous and unfamiliar words, outworn and stilted expression, vague terms, wordy phrases, complex sentences etc.
- Definite structure: A business letter should always be written by following a definite structure. Well-structured busyness letter can attract the attention of its readers.
- Specific purpose: Every business letter should have a specific purpose. The language of the letter should be arranged in such a way so that the reader can realize the
purpose of writing the letter. - Relevance: Only relevant information should be included in business letter. Irrelevant and excessive information irritate the readers and create negative impression about the letter and its writer.
- Accuracy of facts: Business letter should convey accurate information to the reader. Inaccurate information is worse than no information at all.
- Free form errors: A business letter should be free from all sorts of errors and mistakes like grammatical errors, misspelled words etc.
- Brevity or conciseness: It is said that Brevity is the soul of wit. Accordingly, it is regarded as the lifeblood of business letter. An informative but squeezed letter it the symbol of writer’s intellectuality. It saves the reader’s time and enhances his inclination towards the letter. So an informative but brief letter can easily achieve business goal.
- Completeness: A business letter must contain all necessary information so that it can give a complete picture to the receiver. A business letter containing incomplete and partial information cannot serve any business purpose.
- Courtesy: There is a proverb, Courtesy costs nothing but gains more. In writing business letter the writer should use courteous words to show honor to the readers. A courteous and politely written business letter can easily gain the sympathy of the readers.
- Timeliness: In business it is commonly said that time is money. So letters should be written in due time. Untimely written business letters negatively affect business relationship and goodwill.
- Neutrality: Acceptability of business letter depends on its neutrality and impartiality. So the writer should be natural and impartial in arranging information in the letters.
From the above discussion, it is clear that the efficacy and success of a business letter depend on several factors. So the writer should be careful enough to the factors mentioned above in writing letter.