邮件谈判技巧：确保沟通清晰与避免误解

Okay, so we talked about some general guidelines for negotiating by email. So now let's focus on the biggest challenge, making sure that your message is clear and that you avoid any misunderstanding. In this section of the lesson, we'll talk mainly about the language that you will need. First, let's talk about useful language to refer to a topic. If you received an email that included several topics, you would want to be clear about which topic you are referring to in your response. It's useful to use these expressions when we refer to the topic regarding, concerning, or as for. Look at how we can use them. Regarding cleanup, we can do it for $200. Concerning the rate, it is $200 per hour, Sunday to Thursday, and $250 per hour on the weekend. As for the deposit, it is 10% due a week before the event. Notice that we use a noun phrase after these expressions. Now, let's look at another way to make sure that what we are writing will be clearly understood. Look at this example. Would you be able to offer a discount of 10%, that's acceptable. Great. Now that seems pretty clear. I don't think anyone will misunderstand that. You're now going to read part of an email from Pam Lee, discussing a possible deal to order some supplies. Read the email to find what Pam wants. Pause the video if you need more time. Let's check that you found what Pam wants. First, she wants to know if she can get a discount. Second, she wants to know if payment is at the end of the month. Depending on this answer, she might need to ask to defer payment, meaning she wants to pay later. Now read a reply from Kayla Johnson. What is Kayla's answer? Pause the video if you need more time. Well, it seems that maybe she can get a discount. She might be able to pay later too, but she doesn't know if the payment date is at the end of the month. Anyway, they need to check with Sammy. Now read Sammy's reply. What are the responses to Pam's requests and question? Again, pause the video if you need more time. Well, does Pam have the answers? I don't think so. Sammy said yes, but does that mean yes Pam can get a discount? Or if she can pay later? Also, Pam still doesn't know if the payment date is supposed to be the end of the month or the 15th. You can see that one week after Pam sent her email, she still doesn't have the answers. It's especially important to be clear when you are negotiating by email, when each email deals with several topics and the conversation involves several different people and there are time delays in responses because the danger of miscommunication increases the more complex the conversation gets. In Kayla's email, she made a request. Would you be willing to offer some sort of discount? And she asked a question, is the payment date at the end of the month? She also made another request to defer payment if the payment date is the 15th. Kayla said that sounds fine, but what she's saying fine to the discount or to paying later. The word that is unclear. So let's look at how we could improve that situation with another technique to make clear references. To do this, we use general nouns. We saw from that email conversation that would you be willing to offer some sort of discount? Is a request and is the payment date at the end of the month? Is a question? Request and question are general nouns. If Sammy had said yes to your request for a 5% discount, Pam would know exactly what Sammy meant. So let's look at some other very common general nouns we might use in a negotiation. Point is very useful. It can be used for an opinion or the important thing you are trying to say. For example, I think your sales will increase with this product. Your point is a good one or we don't have a lot of flexibility with that time. We need it by the end of the week. I understand your point. Here are some more general nouns. Suggestion. If someone writes how about if we share the cost, we can use suggestion to describe this. Offer. If someone writes we can give you a 5% discount in exchange for payment within one week, we can use the word offer to describe it. Concern. If someone says we're worried about going over budget, we can use the general word concern. Finally, explanation. If someone writes unfortunately, we're unable to stay open past 2am because of the terms of our insurance, we can describe this as an explanation. Great. So now we have a list of a few general nouns. Let's see how we can use them. Going back to our example, asking for a 5% discount. If I want to accept the request in my email response, I can do something like this. Would you be able to offer a discount of 5%, we can agree to your request for a discount of 5%, what we've done is use the general noun request and then followed it with a preposition phrase to make it clear exactly what request we are talking about. Although saying something in as few words as possible is a good guideline for email conversations, in negotiations it's maybe more important to make sure everyone is clear about what is being offered and agreed upon. Let's do some practice using this technique. You will see a sentence from an email. Choose the best general noun phrase you could use in a response email to describe the sentence. Good. So we've talked about trying to make sure everything is clear, but there are still times when one person doesn't understand something. Then they need to ask for clarification, which means asking the other person to explain. Read the following emails between Emily Hamilton, our events planner, and Tony Zanetti, the caterer. As you read, think about what questions Emily will have for Tony. Pause the video if you need more time to finish reading the email. Well, there are a few things Emily will probably want to ask Tony about. One, the $10 is that $10 total or per person. If it's $10 total for adding a different course, that's a pretty good deal. Another question is how long would the other servers be able to stay and how much extra would it cost? Finally, what's the extra $50 for if the company supplies its own beverages? So, Emily will have to write back to Tony with some questions. Let's look at some examples of how to ask for more information. Here are some polite ways to ask for clarification. What do you mean exactly? Could you explain a little more about that? Could you give me some more details about that? Could you clarify something for me? I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean? Now, read Emily's email and find the expressions that she used to ask for clarification. Here are the expressions that Emily used. When you say an extra $10 for the two options, do you mean per person or in total? Also, regarding the extra servers, could you give me a few more details? I'm not sure I understand why we wouldn't need to pay the extra $50 if we supply our own beverages. And finally, could you explain a little more? We can also ask questions to make sure that we have understood something. For example, you are ordering some supplies and you are offered a 15% discount based on the amount of your order and free shipping as long as you pay within one month. You might want to confirm your understanding of that deal. By the way, we have an idiom in English to describe this situation. I want to make sure we are both on the same page. You can do that by using one of these phrases. Just to confirm, I just want to make sure I understand. Could you confirm that and then restating your understanding of the agreement? Okay, so once you've negotiated your deal and made sure you both understand all the details, you'll want to summarize the agreement. Here are some useful phrases to introduce your summary. Can I just summarize what we have agreed? Let me just go over what we've agreed. Here's the summary of what we've agreed. And then at the end of the summary, you can use a phrase like this. Let me know if I missed anything. In most negotiations, there is usually a written version of an agreement. In a very simple negotiation, you might give the details in the body of an email. But more commonly, you'll have a letter of agreement or a contract. You can attach this to your email or mention that you will follow up by sending the agreement later. As a reminder, here are some ways to refer to an attachment. I've attached a letter of agreement or the contract. Attached is a letter of agreement or the contract. And here are ways to promise to follow up. I'll send the contract, a letter of agreement. I'll write up a letter of agreement, contract. Finally, you would end the email with a friendly closing sentence like the following. I look forward to working with you. Let me know if I've missed anything. Okay, so let's summarize the ways to be clear when negotiating by email. First, we should make sure the other person understands which topic we are discussing by referring to it and specifically naming it in each email. Using general words like point about, your question about and your request for are useful. Ask for and give clarification when necessary. Make sure each site has a shared understanding of the agreement and then send or attach a contract or letter of agreement. Finally, end with a friendly closing sentence.