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What type of company do you work for OP? You mention clients.
Advising on business matters and legal matters is very important, as you know, so in law firms certain templates/boilerplates are used. And then variations are added to the template. I would imagine that other types of companies would find some templates useful too.
In my past job, a database was attempted to maintain answers to client questions. It actually had a lot of problems in its usefulness, and never became a success. The idea was not needing to re-create the same or similar answer for repeated questions. It turned out though that very few exact questions reoccurred repeatedly.
Last edited by matisse12; 06-21-2017 at 03:00 PM..
What type of company do you work for OP? You mention clients.
Advising on business matters and legal matters is very important, as you know, so in law firms certain templates/boilerplates are used. And then variations are added. I would imagine that other types of companies would find some templates useful too.
I'm in business lending. Most correspondence with clients is done through clerical staff that works with us. My department makes credit decisions, so most emails we send are internal memos. I can understand being very precise on external emails, but agonizing for 30 minutes over how to word a sentence in an internal email is a foreign concept to me.
On the other hand, I'm shocked at how many people write internal emails saying things like, "This customer is an idiot!" or "There is NO WAY we are lending another dime to this guy."
I always coach these people that any and all emails can be retrieved if that customer sues us. It doesn't matter if you delete and the recipient deletes it, emails are forever. Every time you write something, try to imagine being forced to read it in a courtroom.
Templates are a way to ensure every customer, whether internal or external sees the same professional image and response to similar questions. If you're in an office where things get audited, I can see a need for templates and careful wording on official responses. Remember in those instances you aren't writing for you or even a coworker who understands what's going on. You're writing for an auditor, sometimes years after the fact, who has no clue about the situation or who was involved but who will make her own judgment based purely on what was said.
Even in an informal setting many people agonize over the words because of the 1001 ways someone can misinterpret what you say, sometimes intentionally. In the Air Force we called it "happy to glad" changes
I have a template, but I memorized it. At some point, I was taught that a piece of mail had a salutation, body, and closing signature. Now switching to email, add a subject to that.
.
Nowadays, I use the signature feature on Outlook so I don't have to keep writing my name, number, job title, and company, so I guess you could say I still use templates.
As a writer, I encourage the use of templates for most people. You need look no further than social media, texts, etc. from friends, family....even our President.....to see how poorly the average person puts together sentences nowadays.
If I had a dollar for every misuse of "Your" vs "You're" I'd be very wealthy.
Or how about "irregardless"? Do you know how many people use that word? Or "I could care less" when they really mean to say "I couldn't care less". Grammar & writing seem to be a dying art. I wonder how much of it has to do with texting?
I just do my emails at work as if it was a letter and keep it brief and professional.
Templates make sense when an attachment is needed in the form of a full-blown letter style. Otherwise, an e-mail is supposed to only have three paragraphs, maybe four short short paragraphs. Surprisingly, that takes time because we have to be succinct and choose correct words. (It's generally understood, no one reads a wall of text in an e-mail for comprehension.) Add time for those employees who were educated where their essays were only graded on meaning and not grammar. They cannot troubleshoot basic concepts (effect, affect, they're, their, there and apostrophe abuse). Resign yourself to always proofing their work because what they write, reflects the company.
Ok, this is a rant. I need to see if I'm the only one that deals with this.
I routinely get questions from peers asking me if I have a "template" for an email or memo. They ask, "Do you have a template for an email where you have to advise a client of xyz?"
I tell them that I don't save those and every time I need to email a client, I just freeform it because every situation is usually slightly different.
Why do people have difficult drafting a simple email? Sometimes it is only a few sentences and they seem to really struggle with it. I'm not talking about people fresh out of college, I'm talking about people who have worked in an office environment for decades. If I get one more question regarding, "How would you word this?" I may scream.
I have a template, but I memorized it. At some point, I was taught that a piece of mail had a salutation, body, and closing signature. Now switching to email, add a subject to that.
.
Nowadays, I use the signature feature on Outlook so I don't have to keep writing my name, number, job title, and company, so I guess you could say I still use templates.
You should set up Quick Parts in Outlook - web search it. I use it all day, every day. I can send instructions, web links, etc., from a template in a nanosecond.
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