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Different Salutations in Business Letters

             Myriad of business activities are carried out through emails or normal letters drafted to develop business partnership or offer quality goods or services. Business letters are essential in resolving commercial, organizational, legal, procurement and several other issues and disputes within the business environment (Sue & Marilyn, 2019). These letters, according to Sue and Marilyn (2019), have rigorous, laconic, simple and clear language and terminology. When writing a business letter, one creates a relationship from the start through salutation. Salutations help the author to address the reader and thus a professional tone must be used to maintain the rapport that author has with the recipient. This paper describes how various salutations are used in business letters and provides an example for each salutation.

            Formal salutations are used when the author addresses known or unknown recipients. Principally, when writing a business letter to unknown recipient, Sue and Marilyn (2019) noted that the author can use salutations such as Dear Sir or Madam and To Whom It May Concern to show the level of respect he or she has for the reader. Similarly, when writing a business letter to recipient whose name is already known, the author uses salutations such as Dear and the person’s last name. In this case, the author should identify the marital status, gender, or professional title. In particular, the author should use identifiers such as Miss, Mrs. or Mr. to identify the marital status and gender of the recipient. Similarly, professional salutations such as Dr and Prof among others are used to identify a doctor or a professor based on their academic qualifications. For instance, Dear Dr. Androville.

            Gender specific salutations are used when the person writing the business letter has the full names of the recipient, but unsure whether the recipient is either a male or female (Sue & Marilyn, 2019). Given that unique spelling, language differences, as well as, gender ambiguous names can bring confusions, gender specific salutations helps the author to identify whether the gender of the recipient. Gender specifics are also used when the author is unsure of the gender of the recipient. In this situation, it is advisable for the author to ignore the gender identifier and use the full names of the recipient. For instance, Dear Alwyn Androville.

            Semiformal salutations are used when the author is on equal terms with the recipient or has a good rapport that qualifies him or her to be friendlier. For example, when using a mail merge program, the author can send the business letter and adjust the salutation to the whole group as opposed to an individual. In such a situation, the author is advised to establish the group collectively. For instance, Dear colleagues, Dear attendees, or Dear team. Secondly, in a relatively less formal way, female or individual business letter salutations can be used. In this case, the author can use Dear but with the recipient’s first name. Here, no identifiers are required. However, such salutations should be used in situations where the author is already on the first name basis with the recipient. For instance, Dear Joe can be used when the author does not mention Mr. Jones in full. Common digital greeting is another type of semiformal salutations used while writing business letters. Reports indicate that business letter emails tend to adhere to relatively relaxed guidelines. In such a case, the author of business letter is supposed to establish the relationship and suitability of using less formal salutations including, Good Afternoon or Hi. Nonetheless, when the author is in doubt, he or she should be traditional to stay away from annoying a recipient who could view the salutation as disrespectful.

            In conclusion, the suitable salutation for business letters depends on the type of message being conveyed, tone of the message as well as what the author knows or does not know about the recipient. Therefore, the author should always take sufficient time to identify the name, professional status or title of the recipient. Doing this will enable the author to establish on whether to use formal or informal salutations in business letters.