No matter what job you do or what position you’re in, most of us get at least a few emails a day. Knowing how to write an email response professionally is one of the must-have skills. If you are not confident enough in this skill, let’s improve it by reading this post.
what is a reply email?
The name has already told us everything. a reply email is simply an email to reply to another email. In business, this is the kind of email you’ll have to write every day. this could be a meeting confirmation email, approval of a request email, response email to an inquiry, rejection of an invitation or contract email, acknowledgment email, etc. therefore, our recipients can be anyone you meet while working: your partner, your client, your boss, your colleague.
Because maintaining high standards in business emails is a sign of professionalism, the email response should be well-written in all cases. poorly structured and unprofessional responses can even result in business failure. so how to write an email response?
response types and their format
There are many different types of email responses, depending on how you break them down. it can be based on your intent, its format, or who you’re sending the email to. In this post, we will list reply emails in 2 types:
automatic reply
In this technological age, you don’t need to send emails one by one to notify your customers that you have received their order or something like that. With the help of a smart app, we can now easily send autoresponders. this type of response tells them that you may not be able to respond instantly, but you’re on it.
personal response
this type of email is what we really need to learn to write. Basically, in business, an email reply will also follow the normal etiquette of writing professional emails. When learning how to write an email response, you must remember to include:
The Subject Line
should serve two purposes: to deliver the information that you have received their emails, and to let them know that their request should be responded to soon. ex:
We received your email! wait!we are working on your request. we’re on it.
the opener
Just think of this line as greeting your receiver. of course, we should greet them by name. Some software will help you to insert your recipient’s first name into your email (from their email name) automatically. if not, a simple greeting like “hello” is enough.
eg:
hello, mr. smith,
dear mr. potter,
the body
In this part, you will clearly convey why you are sending this email:
- for the autoresponder, your purpose should be to let them know that their request was received and that you will give them a detailed response to help them.
- for a personal response, the content can be anything depending on what the recipient wrote in the last email. If they have asked/requested more than one thing, please answer each question in a separate paragraph so your recipient can easily understand your answers. there are many examples below for you to learn how to write a reply email.
the end
“thank you” is a must in almost every email. a few words like “thanks for the email!” he is polite enough. You can also write a thank you phrase and a closing phrase like yours, regards, etc.
read more
- How to write an email to reschedule a meeting in the most courteous way?
examples of how to write an email response
approve a request
“dear mrs. black, welcome! Your application to ABC has been approved. we are very happy to have you as one of our new programmers. Mrs. black, as we said before in our last few emails, our vision at abc is to be one of the best places to provide online english lessons to students all over the world. with millions of users our site needs great coders to maintain. and of course we hope that you are the one who can do this. here are your login details: username: melina black password: 12345678
The entire abc team looks forward to a friendly and professional working relationship with you. If you would like information or support, feel free to let us know. thank you.”
reject an invitation
“dear mr. chen, sorry for the delay in responding to your email. Recently, I’ve been in the process of setting up my own startup, so I’ve been pretty busy. Thank you very much for your invitation to work in your company. however, as I said before, the time may not be right for me to accept your invitation.
thank you for understanding. best regards,”
respond to the customer’s request for information about your product or service
“dear mrs. jones, thank you for your inquiry about our new office cleaning service. we currently provide top notch service in the chicago area. In order to provide you with an estimate of the cost of our services and further information, I would like to schedule a meeting at your office on any business day. feel free to email or call me through the hotline if you have any further questions. Hope we can serve you soon. yours sincerely,”
things to keep in mind
From these examples above, I bet you should have known how to write an email response effectively, either positively or negatively the emails that come your way. As a summary, we better make sure our email responses are:
clear, direct and unambiguous
You need to know what they ask of you and what you want to say in the email. just write it short and short because there is no point in writing thousands of useless words. make your answers one by one (between you and the reader)
You should definitely be the one to take responsibility for your email response and speak directly to the recipient. for example, instead of writing:
We would appreciate it if you could send the final contract tomorrow.
you must write:
I would really appreciate it if you could send the final contract tomorrow.
remember to reply within 24 hours
in business, everything must be fast. Replying to an email within a day (24 hours) is good etiquette. certainly, we must respond as soon as possible so that your receiver is sure that you respect him and his concerns are being heard. In some cases, if the email you receive is emergency or forceful, a phone call may be more appropriate than taking the time to write an email.
keep it short and simple
just write directly on the main subject. long greeting and thank you are not considered polite. the length of your email responses can even determine whether or not the recipient will read it. if it’s too long, it can sometimes miss the point you want to get across.
hopefully after reading this post, you will know how to properly write an email reply. There are still many other business emails you need to learn which can also be found on the ejoy blog.
Let the joy be with you on your English learning journey! you can look up the meaning of words right away, save them to your own word books, and try many more ways to improve English. joy is waiting for you to explore!