Contemporary business letters and emails in German are clear yet personal. In this intensive seminar, participants are provided with simple and effective tools for wording letters and emails in a professional, customer-oriented style. The key to a professional style lies in precise and succinct messages presented in a well-structured format.

Expectations of letters and emails have changed. Anyone writing in the “old style” today conveys a poor image of their company to customers and other communication associates.

Contemporary letters and emails are clearly structured and precisely worded. They are recipient-focused, easy to understand and free of obsolete phrases or “officialese”.

Seminar objectives: Participants find out how to write in a contemporary style with a range of practical tips and suggestions. They learn how to work out a basic structure for daily letters and emails, enabling them to create texts more quickly, more confidently and with a clear target in mind.

Duration: 1–2 days, e.g. 9 am. to 4 pm.

Preparation

• Participants submit customer letters and emails and the relevant replies for prior analysis and formulate their questions and expectations of the seminar.

Content

• The eight basic principles to follow for a contemporary letter and email style in German
• What no longer works: obsolete („zur Verfügung stehen“), wrong („beiliegend erhalten Sie“), superfluous („wir beziehen uns auf“) or clumsy expressions are replaced with flawless, appropriate and contemporary ones
• Clear, targeted and precise phrasing: drafting letters that are correctly and comprehensibly structured
• Sensible structuring and the best possible line of argument
• Primary and secondary purpose of the customer letter: choose positive, respectful wording which is not patronising
• If necessary: create templates for commonly used texts
• Write with formal precision: be familiar with and apply the guidelines and norms for correspondence
• Optimise letters and emails written by participants