How to write a polite reminder email?

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What guidelines and language should be used to write a polite reminder email. Ideally I would like it to be:

Respectful
Not too formal

In particular I am thinking in terms of business, and communication between businesses.

email letter

posted almost 14 years ago

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Kyle Brandt‭

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not constructive

This question cannot be answered in a way that is helpful to anyone. It's not possible to learn something from possible answers, except for the solution for the specific problem of the asker.

This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/1284. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Regarding the bullet point on the message being "respectful", I would like to point out something which I don't see being stated explicitly in any of the previous answers. This goes equally for both original requests and reminders alike.

Make it actionable by the recipient.

Give the recipient a clear path forward, next step or next action, in terms of somehow telling them what you're hoping to get out of a reply which will provide closure on the matter. This could be something simple, such as "looking forward to your feedback on my thromblemeister design proposal" or "please let me know by Wednesday afternoon which option to order, so that we can have it delivered by Friday" or even "let me know if you would like to see the complete manuscript".

In a sense, not much different from writing a question on Stack Exchange: tell us what you need.

It typically only takes one or at most two extra sentences to provide a clear next action, and can go a long way toward fostering that warm fuzzy feeling in the recipient that they are done with that e-mail. Probably 90-95% of people won't really care and will be happy with implied closure, but for the remaining 5-10%, it can help a great deal. If you can do that at little cost to yourself, it can hardly hurt if people see your name in their inbox and think "ah, s/he is the one who always makes it easy to see what they want, so I can take a look right away and quickly tell whether it's something I can handle immediately".

That said; obviously, the way you phrase your desired next action on part of the recipient will depend on your relationship to the recipient as well as social customs.

posted over 6 years ago

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