Writing Standard Business Letters

The State of Alaska wanted to improve 50 standard business letters that a division sent to many Alaska residents—to cut down on complaints, mistakes, explanations, and corrections. Our approach to writing standard business letters:

• Create model letters. We reorganized and reworded five letters to display their requirements clearly.

• Lead staff workshops. In short workshops, the division staff studied our techniques for writing business letters and applied them to a few letters. Later they rewrote the rest.

When the new letters replaced all the old ones, complaints stopped, the phones rang less, and the division received letters thanking it for “making state government make sense.”

You may have received a standard letter we helped write or revise. We’ve worked with the U.S. Social Security Administration on letters to the public about entitlements and with the U.S. Census Bureau on letters to businesses explaining its surveys.