Return to the office or in the office?

Question

Hi,I know that you say "to be back IN the office" and not "to the office" but it is not clear to me if you would say "return to the office" or "return in the office"? Maybe this second one?Tomorrow I´ll have to write an e-mail to one of my customers with this object: "return to \ in the office""Dear XXXI hope you passed a nice Easter time and you are ready to continue our deal (or to work on our project is better?).Please let me know if you have well received both my e-mails sent on 3rd of April and if you have already selected (chosen is better?) one of the 5 options prepared for you"Thank you for checkingPamela

Dimsumexpress · Accepted Answer

Hi Pam,
From the business correspondence point of view, the tone of this email doesn't work for me (sorry to say that!)
First, if you have to say it, then " we've returned to the office...". I am not sure what the business customs are where you are but in the US, we don't email to our customers or clients to let them know we've resumed business after a holiday, because it is understood.

For the letter, I would say something simple like this:

Dear ***
We hope you had a happy Easter holiday. Following up on our email business discussion last week, do you have any questions on the options we'd prepared for you ? Please don't hesitate to contact me for any question you may have.

Regards,

xxxx

CalifJim · Answer

Pamela81return to \ in the office

You return to the office, not return in the office.

No motion: be in the office Motion: go to the office, return to the office, run to the office

Pamela81Dear XXXI hope you passed a nice Easter time and you are ready to continue our deal (or to work on our project is better?).Please let me know if you have well received both my e-mails sent on 3rd of April and if you have already selected (chosen is better?) one of the 5 options prepared for you"

I hope you had a pleasant Easter and are ready to continue work on our project. Please let me know if you have received the two e-mails I sent you on April 3, and if you have selected one of the five options prepared for you.

Both selected and chosen are good.
passed a nice Easter time won't work.
deal is probably not good.
(made) available to you would probably work as well as prepared for you.

If you want to press the customer a little more, you can end with

... April 3, and which of the options you have selected from among the five we have made available to you.

CJ

Pamela81 · Answer

Hi CJ,
thank you so much.

About "return to" or "return in" I got confused because of this post:

I have to understand that we return to the office but we are back in the office

......ok

Thank you for explaining why my sentences are wrong but you just said "probably" referred to the correction for "to deal" why? Aren´t you sure that this one is wrong?

I like the last one option you have mentioned. Thanks!

Pamela

Pamela81 · Answer

dimsumexpressHi Pam,From the business correspondence point of view, the tone of this email doesn't work for me (sorry to say that!)First, if you have to say it, then " we've returned to the office...". I am not sure what the business customs are where you are but in the US, we don't email to our customers or clients to let them know we've resumed business after a holiday, because it is understood.For the letter, I would say something simple like this:Dear XXXWe hope you had a happy Easter holiday. Following up on our email business discussion last week, do you have any questions on the options we'd prepared for you ? Please don't hesitate to contact me for any question you may have. Regards,xxxx

Hi,
thank you for the reply. Don´t worry, I am glad to receive any corrections or remarks, this will help me in improving, if you just ignore my mistakes, it wouldn´t be of help.
Well, some customers are from UK , some from USA but the most of them are not Eng,native speakers. Do you think that my e-mail is not appropriate to a business relation? Maybe not enough informal?
I usually have a good business relation with my customers and often write this type of mails in special occasions like Easter or Christmas and so on. My boss thinks that if we have such a good relation, customers will place order

I personally do not know if it works but I don´t have problems in writing these mails if the customer is kind :-)

What would you think if you were my customer and you received such e-mail from me? Would you laugh at me? would you think that it is unappropriate?

Thank you for sharing with me your opinion

Pamela

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Well, I just thought your email style sounded a bit personal, and the tone and wording are a bit stiff. That's straightly my opinion. It is a matter of style. I have been in the tech business a long time and I always tried to keep the email focused on matter at hand and keep the chit-chat to the minimum if I could.

CalifJim · Answer

Pamela81"probably" ... deal ... Aren´t you sure that this one is wrong?

To talk about "our deal" is to talk about a business arrangement that has already been decided on. But your e-mail indicates that you and your client have not yet reached a deal because they haven't even decided on one of those five options yet.

So if you use the word "deal" now, it may sound presumptuous to your prospective client. So I meant that it's "probably not good" in terms of good business communications - even though it is correct grammatically.

Personally, I just don't like the word "deal" at all.

CJ

Dimsumexpress · Answer

CalifJimI just don't like the word "deal" at all. CJ

Same here, and that's the reason why I said the tone and wording sounded stiff.

JohnParis · Answer

"What would you think if you were my customer and you received such e-mail from me? Would you laugh at me? would you think that it is inappropriate (not unappropriate) ?"
Certainly not, Pamela.
If I received such an email, I wouldn't think anything other than it was a polite way to reconnect and introduce the business at hand.
That said, I do agree with CalifJim and Dimsum that "deal" isn't the best choice of words. Their proposed alternatives are much better.

Pamela81 · Answer

Hi Disumexpress, thank you for your opinion. I really appreciate your point of view but please tell me what do you mean by "stiff". I found it on the dictionary and it can mean many many things... have a look: http://www.wordreference.com/enit/stiff . About keeping the matter at hand and "chit-chat" I think that sometimes both can be good if one is able to balance them properly. Don´t you agree?

Pamela81 · Answer

Hi CJ.Thank you so much for the reply. Actually my customer had already expressed the wish to work with us but wasn´t unable to decide which stand option of those 5 to develop.I didn´t want to sound presumptuous, of course... Thank you for pointing it out!

Return to the office or in the office?

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