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Email
Etiquette and
Productivity Tips
An Article compiled By
The Technology Coach
Scott Kendall
Small Business Technology Specialist
www.thetechnologycoach.ca
As
e-mail becomes more and more prevalent in our day to day work I'm
reminded more and more that everyone treats this tool differently, I've
compiled a short list below of some of what I feel are the best tips or
concepts to keep in mind when sending email, most are common sense but
just writing this list helped remind me of some of the more important
ones, enjoy the list, more to come next month.
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Don't send private messages with the company account.
If you want to send personal messages from work (and you should
probably try to minimize this), use a freebie account like
Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! if your office permits it. The content
of your emails is less visible to employers through these
accounts, so the private messages you send will stay private.
-
Use
BCC if necessary. If you must send a group email to
people who do not know each other, don't add their addresses to
the form's CC field; this is one method spammers use to harvest
email addresses. Instead, use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) for their
addresses, and put your own email in the form's "to" field.
-
Don't forward chain letters.
Please don't do it. That includes the email that says that if you forward it to 10 people you'll
win something, it's lying, please don't forward it to anyone
else.
-
Be
professional. Ensure your work emails don't contain
'u', 'lol', 'ty', 'jk' and/or several million other texting /
internet chat acronyms. These developed because cell phones' keypads
aren't well-suited to writing fully-formed words, sentences and
paragraphs. In business communications, however, they may give
the impression of childishness and illiteracy.
-
Be
professional, part 2: Check tone. Be aware of the
professional (or not) relationship between yourself and the
recipient before starting an email. Use that to gauge what
topics are appropriate to write or not, as well as the tone of
your writing. This may be common sense to most, but you’d be
surprised at how often the rule is ignored.
-
Be
careful. Email is not private; it can be intercepted
anywhere en route to its recipient. In addition, it can live on
for years in recipient email boxes, later to return to its
sender in choice quotations. Think before sending email you will
later regret.
-
Cut
down on signatures. Signature files, especially in business,
should contain as few lines as possible. Four lines is a figure
generally agreed-upon. Email that consists of a two-line
statement and a ten-line signature will have its recipients
rolling their eyes.
-
May
I quote you? When you respond to an email, the original
email is quoted. Cut the most relevant sentence from the message
to which you are responding, preface it with a '>' (if it's not
already there) and paste the quote above your response. Delete
the rest of the original email from your response, unless you
are responding to other points in the original.
-
Don't use email when you are angry.
While most of the
time email does not convey your emotions, particularly humour, it
somehow seems to transmit anger - even when you don’t intend it
to come through.
-
Get
clarification. If someone sends you an email that
upsets you, make sure you haven't misunderstood. As mentioned
previously, emotion and tone do not always carry over well in
email. Instead of responding angrily, in your response, quote
the portion of text that you are unsure of and ask the sender to
clarify. Indicate what you think it means, if you like, then ask
if you've misunderstood.
-
Don't Spam friends. Occasionally, mail servers
go on the fritz and send forty-five copies of the same email to
the recipient. Even if it's not your
fault, it is polite to apologize profusely to your friend,
family, or business colleagues.
-
Consider the quirks of other email systems.
For
example, say that you have a friend with a Hotmail account and
want to send a list of hyperlinks. Hotmail doesn't handle
hyperlinks inside of an email very well. For example, you cannot
easily copy the actual URL, without a bit of effort. It's hard to know about all
types of email systems, but some awareness reduces frustrating
situations for recipients.
-
Respond to group email appropriately.
If someone has
sent a group email that requires a response, but only to the
sender or a couple of parties, don't copy everyone on your
reply.
-
Don't respond to every group email.
More specifically,
it is alright to sit out a thread of group conversation if you
are not being addressed directly. However, read the emails
carefully to make sure that you are not being expected to
respond.
-
Respect email laws and regulations.
Some countries have
very specific rules about bulk emailing. If you use email to
promote your business, you need to know the laws for not only
your country but probably wherever you are emailing to. It's a
tall order, given the global village of the Internet, but its
importance cannot be overstated.
-
Use
meaningful subject lines.
Write something
"meaningful" in the subject line, to give recipients a clue
as to what your email is about. This is increasingly
necessary to distinguish legit emails from spam. The
latter's subject lines are often deceptive.
-
Be
brief. Do not send excessively long emails if at
all possible. Try to summarize your information so that your
recipients are more likely to read the email and actually
respond. When possible, break long emails into numbered
point form so that recipients can respond by reference
number.
-
Summarize. Precede a long email with a short
summary.
-
Use 'Reply All' only when necessary.
Usually, the
common advice is to not use "reply all" if other recipients
of a group email do not need your response. But forgetting
to use "reply all" when appropriate is simply inefficient.
If the vast majority of a group needs to hear a message,
writing in individual emails addresses will waste your time
and increase the chances that you’re going to leave someone
important out of the email.
-
If
it's urgent, say so. Writing 'URGENT' in front
of your email's subject will make it stand out from the
crowd, and most likely get timely attention from the
recipient. Make certain it is urgent, however;
remember how much attention was paid to the boy who cried
wolf when his cries really mattered.
-
Use smileys.
If you think that something you've
written might be misunderstood in tone or emotion, use the
appropriate smiley. It should be obvious, but this tip does
not apply to work or other professional emails, or if the
person doesn't know you already.
-
Proofread.
There is a difference between typos and
poor writing. Poor writing improves with practice. Typos
stay typos unless you take the time to eliminate them. If
you are applying for a job or freelance gig, it's especially
important to prufreed before you send that email.
And as if you needed another reason to be concise, remember
that the chance of typos is directly proportional to the
length of your email.
-
Remember the telephone.
Unless you need a written
record of a given communication (or if the person you're
communicating with is long distance), consider calling (or
sending a letter to) your intended recipient instead of an
email. People often default to writing an email because it
is quick and easy; but sometimes a handwritten letter or
phone call can provide the personal touch your communication
really needs.
-
On
Holidays? Taking
some person time for the Holiday Season? If you will be out of your office
or just not checking your email for
a lengthy period of time, set up an auto responder to inform
whomever emails you of your absence, your expected
return and who they can contact while you are away. This is polite (the message is only sent to a given
email once), and it prevents a lot of "I'm waiting for your
response" emails. A quick warning, however, to not use an
auto responder for your home email; you shouldn't advertise
an empty house.
Above all else remember
that email is just one option in the various
forms of communication we use in our small
business every day, it's easy to get caught
up in the "I'll just email them" trap,
communication is key so pick up the phone or
sit down and have coffee to talk about
business with friends and colleagues!
As always Your small business technology is our specialty and we're here
to help so email or better yet, pickup the phone today with any questions you have
about email security, etiquette or privacy, we'd be glad to help!
info@thetechnologycoach.ca
Office: 905-366-8234
_________________________________________
Small Business Technology Service, Training, Coaching and Support
http://www.thetechnologycoach.ca
info@thetechnologycoach.ca
Office 905-366-8234
Mobile 416-802-4424
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