• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Wealth Pilgrim

No Money Worries. No Matter What.

Neal Frankle featured in
  • Home
  • Life Insurance
  • Investing
    • Build Strong Investment Building Blocks To Avoid Going Broke In Retirement
    • Systematic Mutual Fund and ETF Investing
    • Stock Market Investing Guide
    • Choosing the Right Investment Brokerage Guide
    • How Bonds Work Guide
    • How Banks Really Work Guide
    • Annuities – What You Need To Know Before You Invest
    • A Beginners Guide To Buying Individual Stocks
    • Create A Pool Of Great Mutual Funds and ETFs To Pick From To Secure Your Retirement
    • ETF and Index Fund Investment Guide
  • Earn More
  • Banking
  • Retirement Planning
    • Retirement Guide
  • Ask Neal a Question
  • Reviews
    • Upgrade Personal Loans Review
    • Lending Club Review
    • Prosper Review
    • Ally Invest TradeKing Review
    • CIT Bank Review
    • LegalZoom Review
    • Lexington Law Review
    • Airbnb Host Review
    • Should You Drive For Uber?
  • Tax
  • Courses
    • Raise Your Credit Score So You Can Buy a House – Free Video Course

How to Write a Business Letter that Gets Results

by Neal Frankle, CFP ®, The article represents the author's opinion. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more info.

When you (either as an individual or a business owner) enter into a transaction with another party, sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and use leverage to get the other party to live up to their promises. If you want to get results from someone you are doing business with, learn how to write a business letter.

Writing letters may seem antiquated in the age of e-mail. But in reality, business letters are actually a more effective communication because so few people write them anymore. That means people who get your letter are really going to take notice. Every successful business owner knows that the lifeblood of her business is happy customers. If you, the client, take the time to write a letter, the business owner is going to sit up and notice. Use that to your advantage.

So how do you write a business letter that gets results?

1. Don’t Wimp Out

Your first impulse might be to shoot off an e-mail. After all, it’s immediate, easy and free. Pretty tempting. But please resist that impulse. Remember that most people actually will cave in and resort to e-mail. Because you won’t take the easy road, your letter won’t have to compete for the attention of the person reading the letter. And more attention equals faster results.

2. Don’t Vent

You want to get the other person on your side. The quickest way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to refrain from going on the attack. Keep your anger to yourself and do not attack the other person or the other business. No exceptions – not even when you are responding to IRS errors.

3. Be Clear

Before you start writing, make sure you know exactly what it is that you want. Articulate your request in one sentence — if you can’t, it probably means you are confused, and that’s how you’ll come off in your letter. The reader won’t know what you want. And if you don’t know what you want and your reader doesn’t know what you want, you probably aren’t going to be happy with the result.

4. Have Empathy

This might be tough, but put yourself in the other person’s shoes. She is a person just like you. She goes home at night to a family and wants to feel good about herself. Understand what her pressures and business goals are before you start your letter. Think of a way to help the other person get what she wants – while helping you get what you want. That is the key to successful negotiation strategies.

With these four points in mind, let’s write a business letter.

A few months back, I was reviewing my phone bill and noticed I was being charged for a data plan that I never ordered. It turns out we were billed for this unused service for more than four months. I look at my phone bill every month, of course, but this item just escaped my attention. When I called, the phone company told me that they could stop the service now, but they could not refund the billed amount for the previous four months.

Here’s the letter I came up with:

Dear Phone Company,

This morning I called your office to inquire about my bill. I learned for the first time that you have been charging me for a data plan that I never requested. I spoke to a very nice clerk who told me that even though I didn’t order the plan, she could not reverse the charges. She suggested that it was my responsibility to be on top of my bill every month.

She was right of course. I certainly should have been reading my bill more carefully. I also understand that your business is under a great deal of stress, and I can appreciate that you can’t allow every customer who feels like it to simply call after the fact to ask for their money back.

I also understand that there is a great deal of competition in your industry and that the value of a satisfied repeat customer is very high too. In fact, I have been a satisfied customer, and if you check your records you’ll see that rather than shop for a new plan and carrier every few years, I simply renew. I like doing business with people I can work with, and that certainly has been the case with your company.

If you continue checking your records, you’ll see that I am a great customer. I pay my bills on time and have done so for years. And I know that customers like me are very valuable for fine companies like yours.

Yes, I was irresponsible for not catching your error earlier. But it was, after all, your error. In addition, you can see that I never used the data package because I didn’t know we had one. Your representative confirmed that data was never accessed.

Bottom line: I am a good customer, and I hope you agree that I deserve a little consideration. Also, since I never ordered this service, I don’t see why I should pay for it.

Would it be reasonable to expect that you will reverse those charges in the next week? I would certainly appreciate it. I’ll follow up with you in 10 days to answer any questions.

Sincerely yours,

Mr. Satisfied Customer

You can see that I am very firm in the letter, and I try to explain why it’s in the phone company’s interest to work with me.
In reality, I think that letters like these are much more effective on smaller businesses rather than large corporations. I think that’s because small businesses employees are closer to the customers and appreciate them more.

Final note: Of course it’s critical to make sure your spelling and grammar are perfect. And if you want to go the extra mile, have another person read your letter before you send it. If you are angry enough, you might unknowingly let some resentments leak through in your letter.

And make sure to tell your reader when you’re going to follow up, and do so. This starts the clock ticking and makes sure the other party takes action fast.

How do you write an effective business letter? What do you do differently?

 

Tweet
Pin
Share

Reader Interactions

User Generated Content (UGC) Disclosure: Please note that the opinions of the commenters are not necessarily the opinions of this site.

Comments

  1. frugalportland says

    February 22, 2012 at 1:03 PM

    Did you bold those phrases in the letter, or just for our purposes?

    Reply
    • Neal Frankle says

      February 22, 2012 at 1:10 PM

      YES. I just used bold to emphasize.

      Reply
  2. happycustomer says

    February 20, 2012 at 12:47 PM

    I agree 100%. I have many times written to companies that I continue to do business with to settle a misunderstanding or error. Be clear, don’t vent, and ask for resolution within a clear timetable. Good article!

    Reply
  3. krantcents says

    February 20, 2012 at 9:48 AM

    Good points! I would add tell the reader what you want from them.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Are You Human? * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

Primary Sidebar

Who is Neal Frankle

Neal Frankle

I'm a Certified Financial Planner™ with more than 25 years of experience. I feel very blessed and hope to share my personal financial experience and professional wisdom with readers of WealthPilgrim.
Read More »

Stay Connected

Facebook Twitter YouTube RSS

More Categories

Career Development
College Funding
Credit Cards
Credit Score Fixes
Money and Marriage
Debt Relief
Estate Protection
Property Investment Loans
Small Business Strategies
Spend Less Money

Disclaimer

Wealth Pilgrim is not responsible for and does not endorse any advertising, products or resource available from advertisements on this website. Wealth Pilgrim receives compensation from Google for advertising space on this website, but does not control the advertising selection or content. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers. The information contained in WealthPilgrim.com is for general information or entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Please contact an independent financial professional for advice regarding your specific situation. Wealth Pilgrim does not provide investment advisory services and is not a registered investment adviser. Neal may provide advisory services through Wealth Resources Group, a registered investment adviser. Wealth Pilgrim and Wealth Resources Group are affiliated companies. In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that we have a financial relationship with some of the companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving payments,access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways. Any references to third party products, rates, or websites are subject to change without notice. We do our best to maintain current information, but due to the rapidly changing environment, some information may have changed since it was published. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers.


About · Contact · Disclaimer & Privacy policy

Copyright © Wealth Pilgrim 2021 All Rights Reserved