Engagement - Responsive Messages

For responsive writing to be effective, it must be prompt and courteous, exact, sincere, and brief. It should be straightforward in providing what a reader has requested.

ou will find that responsive writing is often required in the business environment. For example, you may need to respond to a customer inquiry or complaint, to submissions from job applicants, or to one-off queries from work colleagues. In these cases, you should comply with the readers' requests.

For responsive writing to be effective, it must be prompt and courteous, exact, sincere, and brief. It should be straightforward in providing what a reader has requested.

Review each of the characteristics of good responsive writing below:

PROMPT AND COURTEOUS

A good rule of thumb is to respond to a request within 24 hours, or sooner if the person is upset or has a complaint. Being prompt and remaining courteous lets the reader know that you've taken the request seriously and are addressing it in a professional way.

EXACT

You should state your response in the first or second sentence, be sure to answer all questions, use direct specific language, acknowledge important details, and provide additional information if possible.

SINCERE

To demonstrate your sincerity, you can open or close with a positive statement, use a conversational tone, or personalize your response.

BRIEF

A brief response containing only what the reader requires is usually the most effective. However, it shouldn't be so short that it seems inconsiderate or abrupt to the reader.

An example of responsive writing might be a follow-up response to a previous conversation.

The responsive letter states:

"Dear Samantha, I enjoyed meeting you at the international manager's meeting last week. I'm looking forward to working with you on several upcoming projects and particularly wanted to follow up on our conversation about video conferencing. You had a question about how to access the service. We use a video conferencing service that enables our remote partners to attend meetings in "real time." To access this service, you'll need to register online. Regards, Melanie Kline."

The writer is responding to a query by providing information that was requested.

EXAMPLES

The purpose of responsive writing is to provide a response to previous communication. For responsive writing to be effective, it must be prompt and courteous, exact, sincere, and brief. It should be straightforward in providing what a reader has requested.

THANK-YOU NOTE

[Production development staff],

All of you did an excellent job during our last sales quarter. You completed three big projects on tight deadlines. Consequently, our profits for the quarter look excellent.

On behalf of myself and the rest of the management team, let me say thank you and congratulations on a job well done.

Gratefully,

Michael Cassidy

INQUIRY REPLY

Dear Mr. Ryan,

We received your inquiry yesterday regarding our latest software release. This letter will answer your questions concerning our technical support policy.

We handle a large volume of customer inquiries daily, and for this reason, the majority of our technical support is provided by e-mail, which allows us to respond more quickly to each customer. In addition, there is a technical support phone number you may call if you require further assistance. This number is 555-223-1212.

Sincerely,

Michael Cassidy

SYMPATHY NOTE

Dear Jane,

I've been deeply concerned since I learned that Herb has been hospitalized two days ago. It was a shock to all of us because he seemed to be in such good health.

If you have any questions about company health insurance, I would be happy to help. Please call my office or cell phone directly if there is anything I can do.

Best wishes,

Michael

QUESTION

What are examples of responsive writing?

Example 1

Dear Mr. Bradford,

I regret to inform you that your application was unsuccessful. We received applications from many talented individuals, and have selected a candidate with both business and technical skills.

I wish you well in your future career endeavors.

Kind regards,

Ed Miller

HR manager

Example 2

Dear Ms. Washington,

With regards to the information that you requested, a comprehensive list of product prices can be found on our web site at www.diallonic.com.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call me at 206-555-4926.

Regards,

Candy Levene

Diallonic store manager

Example 3

Dear Staff,

Starting next month, you'll be required to enter all changes to user documentation in a log file. This is to ensure standardization of documents across the unit.

We'll let you know as soon as the process is formalized.

Regards,

Andrew

Example 4

Dear Sir / Madam,

Hundreds of young children in our rural areas suffer from malnutrition-related illnesses.

For as little as $2 a day, you can help ensure children get the nutrition they require. Investing in the future of our country's children is the first step in building a stronger nation.

Our organization has relied on private donations to provide an extensive school feeding scheme over the past five years. However, rising costs mean that we'll have to cut back on the number of schools we support.

For more information on how you can help, please call 313-555-5768.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Andrew Smith

The first example provides feedback to a job applicant about a submitted application – so it's a response to the application.

Supplying the reader with the price information is a response to a request.

The third example is informative writing because it focuses on providing the reader with information, rather than on addressing specific queries.

The fourth example is persuasive writing – it focuses on convincing the reader to provide a donation.

I have been teaching and training agents, team leaders, supervisors, managers and admins of call centers and other businesses in BPO related fields. This series, comes as a result of that experience. I have more than 4,000 modules that I plan on sharing here. This is # 004-06

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