Greetings and closings in business letters and emails

Image by Luigi Diamanti

An area of common confusion in South African business English is how to start and end business letters and business emails.  To clear matters up, here is your definitive guide to “salutations” and closings.

Let us start with business letters.  If you know the person’s name, to greet the person in starting the letter, always use Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms/ or Miss (Insert Surname) followed by a comma.  Be very careful of titles with ladies, if you are unsure, rather use “Ms.” as us ladies can tend to be a little sensitive regarding our marital status. 
If you are unsure of the name of the person to whom you are writing, start with “To whom this may concern”.

Matters become a little more complicated with the closing of the letter.  If you do not know the person to whom you are writing, you cannot end the letter with “sincerely”. It is only once you have formed a relationship with your addressee that “sincerely” is appropriate, so until that time you will need to end your letter with “Yours faithfully”.

Business emails should follow the same protocol, however there is a common practice in South Africa to end emails with “Kind regards.” Is “Kind regards” acceptable? This is a topic for debate, as can “regards” be “kind”? Personally, I prefer “Yours faithfully / yours sincerely”, however at the same time we must acknowledge that email etiquette is constantly evolving, and in South Africa, we seem to be evolving our own! As “Kind regards” is now so commonly used and culturally accepted, I do not anticipate anyone will have any major issue with you using this as your email closing line, but do not use it to end your business letters.

And on that note, let me say “Kind regards” everyone, let me know if you have any other questions regarding business letter or email salutations and closings.

Image by Luigi Diamanti http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

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