Again, you get the drift but the sender is far too familiar and uses slang and abbreviations.

Both examples would make Christopher Wood shudder. Wood, who spent 12 years teaching English to Japanese businesspeople, felt so strongly about emailing that he wrote a distance-learning course on it. To him clear email English in business is vital because English is the universal commercial language and email is the dominant communication medium of the day.

Yet he finds many emails are sloppy, over-friendly and even discourteous because they breach local customs. At worst, a bad email is dangerous. So, according to the experts, what constitutes an email that shows that a company is efficiently managed and worth doing business with?

‘Imagine letter-writing years ago,’ says Wood. ‘An email should read like a letter.’

So the good business email is really a formal letter, not a casual conversation. It starts professionally – not with ‘Hi’ or ‘Howdy’ – though the first sentence can be a brief pleasantry.

The message should have a warm tone and end with a positive proposal or call for action. ‘The warm approach gets the recipient on your side and helps to develop a relationship,’ says Wood.

Precise
The language should be precise, particularly as any stated prices or delivery dates could be the basis of a sales contract. The message should be brief and anything complicated should be expressed as simply as possible. Pithy emails are easier to understand and are more effective.

In fact, the first sentence after the introductory greeting should be strong and clear and contain vital information. If it is woolly and vague some recipients may not read on. Definite points are more likely to attract the swift response that is required.

Large or complicated documents that have to be sent by email should be re-worded in a concise and readable form. They should be broken up into digestible paragraphs separated by line spaces. Huge blocks of type are horribly off-putting. However, companies should always send very long documents by post or fax. They are irritating when they arrive as emails.

Always remember too that many people are sensitive about their names. This is important, for example, when communications are going to Japan as the Japanese put their surnames first. The convention also often applies in Italy. As a rule problems do not arise as it is usually clear which is the surname. However, anyone not conversant with the convention might be confused if they see a name such as Pippo Baudo, who happens to be an Italian television presenter. The advice is to check first. Incidentally, Baudo is the surname.

Avoid abbreviations
In the body of the email the writer should avoid using abbreviations. RAF and Nato are acceptable but most abbreviations, such as LEA, meaning local education authority, and LOL, signifying ‘laugh out loud’, could be gobbledygook to the recipient.

If you want to keep the recipient sweet, avoid ‘urgent’ and ‘immediately’. If a matter is pressing it is better to say you would appreciate an early reply in order to make a deadline. Real horrors are messages in capitals and the liberal use of exclamation marks. They are turn-offs because they shout at the reader.

Wood believes the right sign-off is equally important. ‘Yours sincerely’ is safer the first time, but ‘Kind regards’ can be used once the ice has been broken. If you are replying, answer all the sender’s questions. It is businesslike and generally avoids the exasperation of receiving the same questions again.

People can forget that an email is a permanent form of communication, just like a letter, so do not send anything that should not go beyond the recipient. Criticism of another person could be embarrassing if it was spread around. It could be printed out and kept on record, and the worst consequence is that it could be libellous if not provable.

More general confidential information should never go by email in case it ends up in the wrong hands. All this means that emailed confidential remarks or information could cost the company in damages or lost business.

A final piece of advice is always to read through an email before hitting the button. You don’t want to say the wrong things inadvertently or make an ass of yourself. Wood’s course teaches that carelessness indicates incompetence, reduces credibility and gives the recipient a superior feeling, not the best basis for business dealing.

Bottom line
As with most business advice, the bottom line is money. The image of an efficient company encourages business. What is more, well-written emails don’t involve the expense of another employee checking them and business can be lost if offence is given.

Another of Wood’s aims is to remove arrogance, which is often unintentional but is reproduced in translation. For example, the Maltese language appears to command people rather than suggesting or requesting. He also wants to take the timidity out of emails from eastern European executives who feel inferior when approaching the sophisticated West.

Wood, who offers the course at Topcopi, the Oxford language school where he is a director, first taught the course to 200 Japanese executives and he is now selling it in the Asia Pacific area as well as Britain. At present he is producing a course to be taught in France, which will be the centre for western Europe. France is a particularly promising market because the government finances this kind of training. At the same time Wood has his eyes on Poland, as a centre for eastern Europe, and South America.

Meanwhile, the area’s biggest growing needs are training in videoconferencing and telephone skills, now being developed by Wood.

‘Essentially, videoconferencing requires meetings skills,’ says Wood. The aims of the videoconferencing course will include people skills and confidence building. A hard nut to crack will be the shyness of Asian businesspeople. Frequently they merely give information when communicating by video. Wood says he will give members of a team contradictory information and tell them to resolve the contradictions as they progress through the meeting, from introducing a subject to summing up.

Next on his agenda will be the teaching of telephone skills, which will be more in demand as low-cost internet telephoning takes off.

Brian Collett is a freelance business journalist with many years of Fleet Street experience