Courtesy letters are quite a rage these days – these are formal letters written to an authority to request his or her time for a meeting to discuss an agenda. While there is no actual format that a courtesy letter is written on, one does have to look out for a few things.
Before you write a courtesy visit letter, make sure that you understand the purpose of writing one. Once you have identified your reason for writing one, you need to decide how much detail you want to put in it. Be careful with too much detailing – you don’t want to write everything in the letter, killing your purpose for the courtesy visit!
Since most courtesy visit letters are written to government officials after they have attained a certain goal or when they are in a position to contribute to a cause, it is important to first determine what exactly it is that they can do for you. Once you know this and have researched completely that your eventual meeting can actually bring about results, you can sit down to write a courtesy visit letter.
The actual content of a courtesy visit letters varies from situation to situation. Let us take the example of an individual writing a courtesy visit letter to a government official who has done something tremendous to encourage people to contribute to a greener Earth. If you are also advocating this cause, you will need to briefly outline how your organizations can sustain environmental health mutually. Wherever possible, provide a few bullet points of what you intend to do and how you intend to do it. By creating an aura of intrigue and interest, you can make sure that you will not be ignored!
A request for a courtesy visit can be written by beginning your letter by addressing the particular person whom you want to meet with. Always provide a subject matter and make sure that you introduce yourself properly. Congratulate the recipient of the letter for any contributions or successes that he or she has to his or her name and provide reference for your information. Then go on to present your agenda, making your reason for meeting obvious from the beginning.
Wherever possible, provide a timeline for when you want to meet. Since this is a request for a meeting, you need to leave the actual date at the mercy of the person whom you wish to meet, but always suggest a few convenient dates so that it becomes easy to choose one out of them. Remember not to make your letter / request too long as you risk losing the plot. Create intrigue by providing limited information of why you want to meet the person. Sign off professionally, indicating your name, designation and organization, along with contact information.