Turn "please confirm" into a clear technical question

"Please confirm the specification" is the most common sentence in technical purchasing and one of the least useful. It does not say which specification, which part of it, what you already believe, or what you will do with the answer. The reply is usually slow, because someone has to guess all four.

Four edits fix it. None of them takes longer than a minute.

Four edits

Name the exact model - Put the designation in the first line. "Please confirm for XF-35H" already beats the original, because a supplier can look something up.

Name the field - Outlet connection. Bore. Working pressure. Material of the seat. One field per question, and number them if there are several.

Say what you currently believe - "Our drawing shows G5/8 - is that the outlet for this model?" is answerable with one word. "What is the outlet?" makes someone write a paragraph.

Say what you will do with it - "We need this to release a drawing on Thursday" tells a supplier which questions to answer first and whether an interim answer is useful.

Before and after

Here is the before and after, so the difference is concrete.

Before: "Hi, could you please confirm the specification of the valves we discussed? Thanks."

After: "Please confirm for model XF-35H: (1) the outlet connection designation, including whether the thread is internal or external - our drawing assumes G5/8; (2) the bore. We need both to release a drawing on Thursday. Photograph of the valve attached."

Ask the uncomfortable one too

One more habit that pays for itself: ask the questions you expect a "no" to. It is tempting to leave out the requirement you suspect cannot be met, and then discover it at delivery. A question that gets a clear "not for this model" has done its job.