Government Organizations and Regulatory Bodies

Quick reference

• 00:04 If you work in an industry that's regulated by a governing body,
• 00:08 you often have to provide justification for your company's actions or
• 00:13 to respond to requests as part of an investigation.
• 00:16 If you have the job of responding to those requests, you're doing so
• 00:20 as a representative of the organization.
• 00:23 Doing so will require some amount of investigation on your part too, and
• 00:27 when you're done, presenting the facts.
• 00:30 Quite possibly your company has specific guidelines for
• 00:34 this type of communication, but generally the following applies.
• 00:38 Your answer will form part of a third party's permanent record which will likely
• 00:43 be shared with others, such as a customer who made a complaint or
• 00:47 even with the media.
• 00:48 And two, being untruthful will only hurt your organization, it won't help it.
• 00:54 Since your response will vary based on your company's specific policy,
• 00:59 the type of request you receive, and the organization the request came from,
• 01:03 we won't spend time here trying to come up with a response template.
• 01:07 Instead, what we'll do is to come up with a few pointers to remember.
• 01:12 Sometimes the request itself will instruct you how to respond.
• 01:16 Pay attention to whether it needs to have a particular subject line,
• 01:21 like a case number.
• 01:23 Is there a time frame or deadline by which you should respond?
• 01:27 Absolutely stick to that deadline, responding early if possible.
• 01:31 Put a reminder or a follow-up flag in your email application,
• 01:35 that's a few days before it's actually due, so that you have time to do your
• 01:39 own investigation and to come up with a response.
• 01:43 In composing your response, use the name and
• 01:46 title from the sender signature when writing the salutation in your reply.
• 01:52 The tone of your response will be formal and
• 01:55 it'll probably sound like the language you'd use in a report.
• 01:59 Any supporting documents as permitted by your company's policy,
• 02:03 these should be sent in a non-editable format as attachments.
• 02:08 The original date of each document must be clearly visible and
• 02:12 the document should be watermarked if possible.
• 02:16 If you're sending several documents, they should be numbered for easy reference.
• 02:20 You should also strive for clarity.
• 02:23 If you say that the customer contacted us, that just leads to another question.
• 02:28 Did they write, did they call, did they walk into the office?
• 02:32 Also for the sake of clarity, avoid acronyms and abbreviations.
• 02:36 Or if they are used, define them in the first instance of use if you'll
• 02:41 be using them throughout the correspondence.
• 02:44 If you're outlining a sequence of events,
• 02:47 each event should be clearly separated using either bullet points,
• 02:52 numbers, or paragraphing in date order if applicable.
• 02:56 Your response should have no statements of opinion or
• 03:00 emotional words in the body of the text.
• 03:03 Finally, you should express your willingness to cooperate and
• 03:06 to provide any additional information which would help in the investigation.
• 03:11 And with the formal business closing, you should have your full name, and
• 03:16 importantly your job title, and contact information.

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