The person reading your message is usually a sales contact working in their second or third language, handling a dozen accounts, and forwarding technical questions to someone else in the building. Every ambiguity in your email becomes a guess or a delay at their end. This is not a reason to write simply as if to a child; it is a reason to write precisely, which is a different thing.
Six habits that change the response rate
- One subject per message. A message about pricing, packaging and the schedule gets an answer about one of the three.
- Numbered questions, each answerable in one line. Ask for the answers to be written under the numbers.
- Photographs and drawings rather than descriptions. A circled area on a photo crosses the language gap instantly.
- Numbers with their units and their tolerance, every time. « Thicker » means nothing; « 2.0 mm ±0.1 » means one thing.
- Avoid idiom, negative questions and conditional constructions. « You don't have stock, do you? » is answerable two opposite ways.
- Confirm decisions in writing, in a short recap message. This is not distrust; it is how a decision survives a change of contact.
Use the channel they actually work in
Email is where formal records live and where messages go unread for two days. The everyday working conversation happens in a messaging application, and being present there changes your response times more than any other single adjustment. The practical arrangement is both: decide and discuss in the fast channel, then confirm in the slow one so there is a record.
When silence means something
A supplier who goes quiet after a specific question is frequently not ignoring you — they are waiting until they can give an answer that will not disappoint, or they are waiting for someone else internally. Sending the same question again adds nothing. Asking a different, easier question — « is this still possible for the March shipment, yes or no? » — usually unblocks it.
Writing your key documents in both English and Chinese removes a whole class of misunderstanding, and signals that you intend to work seriously rather than to compare quotations.