The Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail workbook: Praise From Industry Leaders and Reviewers

Review: "Rating: Strong A"
Book Review By D.E. Prince, originally published in April 2003 at workz.com

The rules of communication in business rarely change. Respond quickly, give the facts, be polite, move on. Pretty basic stuff. But business does evolve and these same rules must also evolve if effective forms of communication are to exist. At the forefront of this evolutionary process is the customer service agent, or rep. The rep is the primary, if not only, contact your clients and future customers will ever have with your company; their ability to communicate effectively with clients is what colors your organization, and you want those colors to flatter.

This is where a book like Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents proves indispensable. Authors Marilynne Rudick and Leslie O'Flahavan have written a guide to better language skills for an ever-evolving business world, and the lessons they give can be applied to letters, e-mail, and the spoken word. As any first-year business grad can tell you, the more effective your business communicates, the more successful it's going to be.

Although written as a workbook, Rudick and O'Flahavan have designed the guide with more than just the usual "retain and regurgitate" style of the past. The examples vary in depth and subject, such as creating full sentences out of fragments or run-on sentences (Something of which I have been guilty.) or the correct placement of modifiers to keep your writing from looking, well, stupid. Consider the following example sentence with a bad modifier:

Sounds like the writer bought the software while on hold on the phone, right? Neat trick if you can do it. Now, look at the corrected version:

A well-written message means no interpretation needed by the reader and problems are resolved much quicker.

But don't think this book is filled only with old grammar techniques we learned in grade school. There are plenty of tips in improving the tone of communication; from knowing how to respond to an angry customer complaint, to using the active voice in writing so as to improve the quality of an instruction or a message. A segment on using "inflated expressions" instead of plain language could be helpful for many reps who feel fancy expressions give their messages a sense of formality, but in actuality only offend the reader with its tone or make the customer feel threatened (Again, guilty).

One of the highlights of the book is a section providing insight into writing for a global audience. With the ever-expanding markets of a global economy and the international reach of the Internet, knowing how to communicate with people in other countries is more important than ever. Keeping your language gender-neutral (Say chairperson, instead of chairman.), avoiding idioms and colloquialisms ("Thinking outside the box" may be misinterpreted in India.), and avoiding humor (You may not be funny. Seriously.) are key ways to keep your communications palatable and acceptable to foreign readers. Consider how your words could be translated for non-native readers and always keep your language polite. Remember that the Internet's international translator often leaves out, or re-writes, words during translation (This is due mainly to the receiving country not having a counterpart word.), so keep your missives short, polite, and to the point.

The workbook is designed for single use, or can be used as part of a group study. There is more than enough material for round-table discussion and space is provided to write your own answers to lessons in the book. With large type and easy to follow instructions, this guide should become an invaluable tool in training customer service agents to respond to customers' e-mails, letters, and phone calls. It should also be used as a "brush up" book for business people who want to ensure their own communication skills are always functioning at peak proficiency.

Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail is by far one the best written, most helpful, and well-designed books for the business community I have ever read. Marilynne Rudick and Leslie O'Flahavan have created a guide that covers not only basic grammar skills but also provides insight into the communication needs of the future, world-wide business community. The material is fresh, well thought-out, and even gave me a few insights into my own communication errors. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

RATING: STRONG A