Email Etiquette In Our Busy Cyber World
by Jennifer Sedna
NelsonJobs Contributing Writer
Proper email communication
Many of us have experienced or at least heard of a negative situation resulting from the tone of
an email being read incorrectly.
While most companies give you clear guidelines managing communication with their clients, they rarely provide guidelines for how to
properly communicate through email with your coworkers.
“Clear business communication, whether internal and informal, or external to
clients…is vital because email moves so quickly and can be made so widely available” say authors of Writing Effective Email,
Nancy Flynn & Tom Flynn. With an increasing number of businesses using email as their primary communication method,
it is essential to learn the basics about using this format professionally and appropriately.
Tone and non-verbal communication
A European survey, conducted by palmOne in 2004, reported that as much as 10% of people have experienced confrontations due
to a tone being misunderstood. When reading an email the receiver cannot hear the intonations of your voice, the volume,
or see your body communication. All of these play a large part in understanding the intention or mood of the conversation.
With this in mind, you should consider keeping all serious topics offline and in person, especially if it is an issue that you have with that person.
There are other disadvantages to using email as the primary way to talk to your coworkers.
In his interview with NPR, Peter Capelli,
Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania, points out that “some of the creative aspects of a give and take conversation don’t
take place when interactions are reduced to a text on screen.” You also might be missing out in developing friendships and social relationships by
keeping communication online.
To keep the tone as neutral as possible, do not write in all capital letters as it is viewed as a form of yelling. If you
need emphasis on something, consider using asterisks or italicizing the word(s) to bring attention to it.
Humor, particularly sarcasm is difficult to convey through email since the tone is essential for it to work well. Using emoticons can help with this, but if you have any doubt, wait to say it in person.
Use flags sparingly
When making an urgent request via email, you can never know for certain if it was received and read in time for your needs to be met. With some people flagging their
emails more frequently than others, it is difficult to truly measure the importance of an email. With this in mind, you should flag your email as
‘urgent’ or ‘important’ only when it truly is required to increase the chances that you’ll get the proper response in the timeframe you need.
The only way to be certain your note gets immediate attention, and that the receiver is aware of its urgency, is to pick up the phone or go to his or her office.
The virtual paper trail
Keep in mind that all email can be tracked while you’re at work. Even if you “permanently”
deleted your messages, companies can still access this information.
Laura Stack, president of the consulting firm The Productivity Pro®, has written email guidelines for Microsoft Office Outlook users. Stack says “Email is company
property and can be retrieved…never put in an email message anything that you wouldn’t put on a postcard.” Thus, you should only write comments that you wouldn’t
mind everyone else seeing, including your supervisor and the CEO.
What’s the subject?
Many people don’t realize the importance of utilizing the subject line to bring attention to their email. Writing a succinct subject heading is an excellent way to
summarize the content and purpose of the email. It is a great way to make your point known from the get-go so that you can be certain your point is made. Some people
sort their email by the subject line, making it even more important that you put something applicable in the subject field. For lengthier messages, Laura Stack recommends
adding the word ‘long’ so that the recipient can set aside time to read it thoroughly.
Business style communication
The 2004 survey by palmOne indicated that 81% of people had ‘negative feelings’ toward a sender that emailed content with bad grammar, misspelling and disconnected arguments.
There is definitely a difference between being informal versus down right sloppy.
Writing a complete, grammatically correct sentence is essential to keeping your conversation as
professional as possible. Once you know your audience, and see their style of communication, you can adapt accordingly. Until then, you do not want to risk appearing lazy and giving a bad impression.
Most email programs have a spell check function that will allow you to check your message before sending it out. While fragments can lead to miscommunication, writing too much can also cause issues.
Since people can be inundated with email, and have limited time to review them, it is often better to send several emails if you have different topics to discuss. You are much more likely to have all
of your questions answered in separate emails than sending them in one message.
10 Additional Tips
- Carefully consider your audience before composing your message
- Reread emails prior to sending, checking for grammatical errors and confusing thoughts or sentences
- Check that you’re sending your message to the correct person/people
- To save everyone’s time, use “Reply to All” sparingly and only when necessary
- Use punctuation marks carefully; a line of exclamation points or question marks
can invoke anger
- Since all email users don’t have HTML formatting, it’s recommended that you attach documents rather than paste them within your message to assure the
formatting appears correctly
- Maintain the same level of professionalism in all of your correspondence to ensure that you don’t make any mistakes with your boss, or your clients
- Always make sure you write content that you would not mind being read by someone other than the original recipient
- Save attachments to your hard drive rather than keeping the message in your inbox; attachments can significantly slow down the server
- When emailing a group of people, use your blind carbon copy (bcc) feature to avoid sharing others’ names and email addresses