This becomes an issue when you do not have prior knowledge of the name, gender or status of the person you are writing to – for example, when addressing a patent department’s general email, or posting a message to a client’s IP management system.
Beyond mere perception and the emotional response an inappropriately addressed message may engender, security concerns have placed email communications under increased scrutiny – and poorly addressed messages may be filtered to a spam box or outright blocked.
As technology progresses, the adoption of AI-generated letters to communicate with clients, for reasons such as sending invoices, reminders, updates, is also likely – in which case personalising each letter to each intended recipient may prove unpractical.
To help guide FICPI members on this issue, FICPI’s Practice Management Committee (PMC) proposed surveying FICPI members, to gather their preferences and opinions on how they address (or would like to be addressed) when sending (or receiving) general letters.
Benefits anticipated
Three benefits were expected from this survey:
- It would help FICPI members understand, at least our mutual needs and expectations better, and help us to tailor our communications accordingly.
- It would enhance FICPI’s reputation as a member-oriented and responsive organisation which values feedback and helps members improve their practices’ processes.
- It would increase our clients' satisfaction and loyalty by addressing them in a more personalised and respectful way, whilst allowing for the use of automation and the potential advantages thereof.
The survey consisted of a short online questionnaire that asked respondents to rate different options for salutations and to provide any additional communication preferences. Over 160 FICPI members from 45 different countries contributed their opinions.
The results
"Dear colleagues" was preferred by about 75% of respondents as a way to address a letter to an unknown recipient, followed by "Dear Sir/Madam" for about 45% of preferences for correspondences within the IP Community. These two variations were also preferred across geographies, with informal greetings such as “Hi” and “Hello” finding limited acceptance only in the US/Canada and Australia/NZ markets.
Type of organisation: While nearly 60% of respondents said they did not change their greeting based on the recipient’s type of organisation, results show clearly that “Dear Sir/Madam” is the preferred greeting when addressing most organisations, whilst “Dear Colleagues” is preferred within the IP community.
Geographic preferences: Curiously, only the sender’s location seemed to be a factor, with 84.2% of respondents noting they did not change their greeting based on the recipient’s geographic region. This appears counterintuitive, as one would expect service providers to be attentive to how their customer would prefer to be addressed – which varies from one location to the next – but digging deeper into this and asking about country-specific preferences of recipients can certainly be a question for a future survey.
PMC hopes members will gather valuable insights into how they can improve our communication with clients and increase their satisfaction and loyalty.
FICPI's view and involvement
FICPI uniquely combines education and advocacy on topics around patents and trade marks, with a focus on developing the professional excellence of its individual members. FICPI Forums, Congress, committees and meetings are opportunities to gather insights from the international IP attorney community on any issue, whether it be practice-related or topics of patent and trade mark law.
Next steps
- Consider getting involved in FICPI's Practice Management Committee Study & Work Groups, find out more at: https://ficpi.org/organisation/committees/practice-management-committee