Why was I told off for saying 'To whom it may concern' in an email to client's customer?

[autisticconsultant]

Just joined this year

I basically cc'd a customer into an email chain where a bunch of client employees were discussing how to best help the customer

Then some lady from the client complained to my manager and said I shouldn't have

She also said me emailing a pair of managers 'To whom it may concern' sounded frosty and unprofessional (?)

I used 'to whom it may concern' bc my email was addressing a bunch of people in senior positions and I thought it was more professional than going 'Dear X, Dear Y, Dear Z, Dear A' or 'Hi all'

My manager told me that essentially the lady felt annoyed that I gave this client problem without trying to sum up the problem myself and present her with some action points and her complaints re the To whom it may concern email were to do being put off by the massive problem I gave her re the client

This illustrates the problem, of course you need to use proper English in all communication to allow you to be understood, you've seen that posters are struggling to understand you

And your chippy responses aren't helping, it's nice to be nice particularly when you want help

You do not communicate well - neither clearly, nor politely. I appreciate this is because you likely don’t have a grasp of the niceties, but it’s extremely hard to understand you and you don’t come across pleasantly.

Do you often liaise with clients directly?

When you send an email, think less about being efficient/lazy, and more about what information is needed to be clear. Have a few basic templates that you can then input that information into, so that you don’t seem as rude as you are coming across here.

@Oblomov24 , It's not rude if used correctly. An example of how you'd use it might be on a written reference, where it might be shown to a number of potential employers.

In an email to several people, TWIMC is impolite.

Judging by your last paragraph you would be better leaving off contacting people by e mail for the time being.

Sounds like you have really useful technical and analytical skills but find the 'soft' side harder. Did you know you are probably eligible for access to work support? You could get a workplace coach to support you with the soft skills side.

OP, I can understand what you are saying in your original post. Yes, it's not written particularly well, but anyone with half a brain can work out what you are saying if they could actually be bothered/had some comprehension skills.

Your written English barely makes sense here.

"To Whom it May Concern" makes no sense when the "Whom" is a named person in the email chain.

But based on OPs other posts, which explain the other issue better, I would be concerned about losing your job based on lack of good judgment, by copying that customer and letting her see all of that "inside baseball" type information.

Maybe your employer has some training modules about email communication, privacy, ethics, etc. I know my employer has all of that.

You need to just take the feedback on board. I know it hurts to be told you did something wrong even when you had the best of intentions but that's how most of us learn.

Next time just say "Hello" as your email addressand only copy in very senior staff when you have exhausted all other options.

You could ask your manager if your firm has an internal AI tool taht would help (never use an external one or it will be all over the internet). This will show you've thought about the criticism and tried to address the problem in a proactive way

I'm a little confused OP.
Was there confusion among everyone about how best to help the client.
And you then cc'd the customer in and said "to whom it may concern" and it was to essentially just show that people were having issues trying to work out how to help?

If that's the case I don't really think the 'to whom it may concern' is the main issue, it was more that it came across like 'whoever you are, sort this out'.

Go to your manager and ask for clear instructures how they would have handled it.

My dh and ds are autistic : were and are A* / class prize English students and brilliant communicators in writing. I think you have a communication and writing skills training gap that’s easily addressed.

“To whom it may concern” is when you have no idea at all who will see or receive your communication (and is closed with “yours faithfully”)

In my work environment we would write “Dear all” if formal and “Hi all” if informal to junior colleagues.

@autisticconsultant

When I first started work, in the days before email or the internet, 'to whom it may concern (TWIMC)' was an acceptable way of sending a letter to a group without having to type out several copies of the letter.

Several decades later (and with access to personal contact details) it does seem more rude and impersonal. In general we have moved away from the 'Dear Sir / yours faithfully' 'Dear Mr X / yours sincerely' structure to much more informality.

I rarely start emails in a chain of communication with 'Dear', it's usual;y 'hi all' (if I know everyone) or if I don't then Dear, A, B, C and D.

In contrast, TWIMC comes across as quite harsh. It feels similar (to me) to when someone who I've met and am on first name terms with addresses me in 3rd party correspondence as Miss Dilemma. It feels cold and like it denies an established working relationship.

In last 10 years I have used TWIMC twice. Both in passive aggressive ways. One was when I was really pissed off about repeated lack of procedure and it was my final notification to everyone before I started to invoke formal complaints. The other was to leaders of a joint project where responsibilities were so blurred that it was impossible to tell who I should address my concerns to. I explained my use of the term as evidence of their lack of process.

I'm not rebuking you in any way, rather trying to explain how I've had to adapt my use of terms to suit the change in how we communicate.

Well, you are only the 2nd poster out of 6 pages / 138 replies who has been able to work it out, so I'd say your measure of "anyone with half a braincell" is pretty inaccurate.

🤣🤣

Neurodivergence must be accommodated, but that doesn’t mean unclear and terse communication can be overlooked. Especially if it is causing confusion and upset to clients.

I’m 63 and was often told to address letters TWIMC when I trained as a secretary at 16. Apart from in a few situations, or where you have no idea whatsoever who the recipient is, this hasn’t been in common use for a long time. Especially in email.

Many people struggle to prioritise important points in writing and expand on them clearly and concisely. Some people seem naturally good at this. Many need help, practice and experience to do it .

My tips are :

when something is long and complex, try typing a draft first. Make a small summary of what has taken place and been agreed/disagreed, so far.

Work through the relevant points. You can even use bullet points if it helps you get everything in order. Using lots of short paragraphs and keeping sentences brief, can really help keep everything clear and as simple as possible. This is good for everyone who has to read it .

Summarise the email with what is going to be done next. Tell the client you are looking forward to hearing back from them soon and are happy to answer any questions they may have.

Always use names if you have them. If not, then good morning/afternoon, is friendly without being anonymous outdated.

I agree it’s a good idea to ask your line manager how they would have gone about dealing with the email .

Good luck. Never be afraid to ask for advice or for something to be checked, if you aren’t sure about it.

Are you drunk?

Well I think I've got the gist now.

Never cc the client in.
Avoid chain emails. My son received one as did colleagues it was about redundancies, what salary everyone was on including their bosses and who was recommended for the chop.
There was uproar across the company which was an international one. The offending email was buried in the chain.

I used to have a letter template that explicitly required you to use Dear Sirs and I used to change it to Dear Sir/Madam every time. Got ticked off for it at least once but just carried on...

We learned to use 'to whom it may concern' in secondary school business studies class in the 1980s. We also learned about franking machines, telexes and manual bookkeeping. I'm not sure I've ever encountered any of these things since.

I don't think it's particularly rude but it's definitely odd.

Twimc is not rude, simply inappropriate to the circs. You only use it when the recipient is unknown.

This may be an autism/idiom issue.

I once sent a chain email with my opinion of my BIL buried in it. Omg the furore. 😂

I don't know if autism feeds into literacy issues in your case but if it doesn't, it might be worth learning a bit of proper grammar, or putting a bit of care into rereading. That would help in terms of your written communication skills.

Just a few small examples: you could easily have put a fullstop in the middle to break up the confusing run-on sentence. You could also have easily fixed typos like a missing article and preposition. I know people sometimes type in short form (eg "client wants file now") but your missing words are more random than that.

Other little things like using the right tenses and quotation marks aren't 100% necessary, but would also help.

"My manager told me that essentially the lady felt annoyed that I gave (had given) this client a/the problem without trying to sum up the problem myself and present her with some action points and her. Her complaints re the "To whom it may concern" email were to do with being put off by the massive problem I gave her re the client."

Other things like tone, context and professional appropriateness are a bit trickier, but actually being readable/legible is the first step, even if it takes you a while to proofread!

I don't think twimc is the main offending issue. It's definitely secondary to forwarding an internal discussion about a client to said client. It's hard to tell from the jumbled OPs but the first 2 OPs seem to suggest both issues are to do with the same client so I think "to whom it may concern" was just sort of the fuel to the main fire.

You say "rude", I say "voicing my opinion of people who want to inflict their home lives on me during work hours whilst asking intrusive questions about my home life". I think that people asking me how my weekend was are being rude and unprofessional. My life is none of their business and I don't care to hear about their lives because that's none of my business.