Email manners
Implement email manners or
netiquette.
For
professional organizations, it is
necessary to prepare a document containing guidelines for email etiquettes. This
email policy should include the entire do and do not concerning the use of the
company's email system. Distribute hardcopy and take signatures of all
employees. Employees must be trained to
fully understand the importance of email etiquette.
Here
is a checklist pertaining to email manners / email etiquettes.
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| Blind Carbon Copy |
1. Use the Bcc field.
While sending greetings
to many friends, use the Bcc: field. BCC = Blind Carbon Copy. When sending an email, some people place all
the email addresses in the To: field. This is bad because (1) All the recipient
knows that you have sent the same message to a large number of recipients, and
(2) you are publicizing someone else's email address without their permission. Insert all email ids in the BCC field. You
may put your own email id in TO field and all others friends email id in the
BCC.
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2. In the reply - answer all questions / points,
to avoid further questions.
Give
point numbers. An email reply must
answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions – If you do not answer all
the questions in the original email, you will receive further e-mails regarding
the unanswered questions, which will not only waste your time and your
customer’s time but also cause considerable frustration.
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IF
YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS, IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can be highly
annoying and might trigger an unwanted response in the form of a bad
email. Even primary school child use
proper lowercase and uppercase.
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4.
Make email personal.
Not
only should the e-mail be personally addressed, it should also include personal
i.e. customized content.
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5.
Use templates for frequently used
responses.
Some
questions you get repeatedly, such as directions to address, or how to
subscribe to your newsletter, or blog. Save
these texts as response templates and paste these into your message when you
need them. You can save your templates in a Word document, or use pre-formatted
emails.
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6.
Answer promptly, but not too quickly.
E-mail
should be replied to within at least 48 hours and preferably within the same
working day. Discuss with your team and
decide, depending on your nature of business.
If the email is complicated, just
send an email back saying that you have received it and that you will get back
to them. You may use auto reply to
acknowledge the email.
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7.
Avoid attaching a file.
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| www.scribd.com |
By
sending large attachments, you can annoy customers. Wherever possible try to compress attachments
and only send attachments when they are necessary. Moreover, you need to have a good virus
scanner in place since your customers will not be happy if you send them
documents with viruses! You may use ‘sendthisfile.com’ for sending large files.
You may would like to convert the file as .pdf format using ‘pdfconverter’. Use Scribd.com for sharing documents for
private and public. Here the advantage
is that the document is converted to HTML 5.
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8.
Use proper structure / layout.
Since
reading from a screen is more difficult than reading from paper, the structure
and lay out is very important for e-mail messages. Use short paragraphs and
blank lines between each paragraph. When making points, number them or mark
each point as separate to keep the overview.
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9.
Do not overuse the high priority option.
We
all know the story of the boy who cried tiger. If you overuse the high priority option, it
will lose its function when you really need it. Moreover, even if an email has
high priority, your message will come across as slightly aggressive if you flag
it as 'high priority'. Use high
priority only when it is both urgent and important.
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10.
Use spell check for correct spelling,
grammar, and punctuation.
This
is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a
bad impression of your organization, it is also important for conveying the
message properly. If your program has a spell checking option, why not use it?
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11.
Don't leave out the message thread.
When
you reply to an email, you must include the original email in your reply, in
other words click 'Reply', (or reply all as the case may be) instead of 'New’.
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12.
Add disclaimer to your emails footer signature.
This
can help protect your company from liability.
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13.
Read your email before you send it.
Many
people do not bother to read an email before they send it out, as can be seen
from the many spelling and grammar mistakes contained in emails. Review for effective message and avoid
misunderstandings and inappropriate comments.
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14.
Do not overuse Reply to All.
Only
use Reply to All if you really need your message to be seen by each person who
received the original message.
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15. Try to be concise and to the point as
much as possible.
Do
not make an e-mail longer than it needs to be. Remember that reading an e-mail
is harder than reading printed communications and a long e-mail can be very
discouraging to read.
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16.
Take care with abbreviations and emoticons.
In
professional emails, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and
LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the
abbreviations and in business emails, these are generally not appropriate. The
same applies to ‘emoticons’, such as the smiley :-).
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17.
Do not forward chain letters.
Do
not forward chain letters. We can safely say that all of them are hoaxes. Just
delete the letters as soon as you receive them.
