Be polite and corteous
Anthony C McHenry
Language Professor English, Spanish and Portuguese / Highly qualified translator covering a broad variety of industries and sectors.
Extracted from Shanthi Cumaraswamy Streat's "Communicate in Business English Like a Pro's" e-book.
The English Language is a polite language. If you’ve ever done business in English, you’ll know that politeness and courtesy are necessary ingredients for a successful business relationship. There is a saying in English that says: “People buy from people they like”. No one wants to do business with rude, disrespectful and arrogant people.
And this is where the use of modal verbs such as may, might, could, would are extremely useful.
Whether you’re giving feedback, making a suggestion or asking permission, modal verbs are your ticket to courtesy.
“Your presentation was good. Well done. You may just want to review your introduction to make it more concise.“ (feedback)
“If I were you, I would contact the suppliers today rather than leave it till tomorrow.“ (suggestion)
“Could I have access to the mail server to carry out the necessary changes?” (permission)
Questions are always better than commands. “Could I have that report by 5pm tomorrow” will get a better response than “Get me that report by 5pm tomorrow”.