What Can Others Learn About You From Your Business Emails?

What Can Others Learn About You From Your Business Emails?

I am a great supporter of using email. If you decide to do business with me, most of our interactions will not take place over the phone but rather through the medium of email. The speed of email is impressive. The use of email is quite practical. Sending and receiving emails takes much less time than having drawn-out phone conversations. The most essential thing that email does for me is that it creates an electronic record of my discussions with my customers, employees, business partners, and other vendors. This allows me to readily refresh my memory, which is deteriorating quickly, by looking back to our electronic chats.

Since I am someone who reads and writes a couple hundred emails every single day, I feel obligated to inform you that I am continually surprised by how poorly written and unprofessional the vast majority of business emails are. Every day, I am sent emails from other business owners that don't even contain complete thoughts or phrases. They frequently have numerous typographical and grammatical errors, are occasionally written entirely in capital characters, and, in some cases, are close to incomprehensible.

Recently, I was the recipient of an email in which the subject line said, Tom, what do you think? Ready to buy? The sender was attempting to sell me an expensive piece of equipment. Tim is the name, and what I think is that I will take my business somewhere. First of all, the name is Tim, and second of all, what I think is that I will. Please accept my thanks and drive through.

Why should you be concerned about how the people who receive your emails will evaluate the content of those emails? Because in the world of business, you are under constant scrutiny from your clients, your workers, your investors, your partners, and your contemporaries. What do you think the person on the other end of your emails is thinking if they convey the idea that you didn't put much effort into the drafting of the message, that you're too busy to be bothered, or that you are a total moron who can't even use a spell checker?

If you don't take the time to learn how to properly use email in a professional manner, it will come back to haunt you. Email is quickly becoming the medium of choice for business correspondence for the reasons I described above, and if you don't take the time to learn how to effectively use email, it will come back to haunt you.

When it comes to sending emails for professional purposes, there are some protocols that should be adhered to. Email Replies is a website that offers 32 suggestions for proper etiquette when communicating via email. Taken from that list and supplemented with a couple of my own, the following are Tim's Top 10 Rules of Email Etiquette, which should be followed by every employee, executive, and business owner who uses email.

Keep it simple and to the point.

Because an email is not the same as a letter from camp, please do not ramble on for any longer than is required. It is important to remember that reading an email on a computer screen is more difficult than reading printed letters, so ensure that your messages are succinct and get straight to the point.

Please ensure that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct.

Not only is this vital to ensuring that your message is not misunderstood, but it is also important to ensure that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct because these things offer a negative impression of you and your firm. Emails that are poorly punctuated (a comma and a period every now and then would be great) are not only difficult to read, but they also have the potential to alter the content of the message entirely. And please do everyone a favor and utilize the spell checker if it is available in the email application you use.

Every email should have a signature block attached to it.

The signature block at the bottom of an email is exactly the same as the signature block that you would use to sign off a letter. You need to include your name, title, the name and address of your company, your telephone number, your email address, and the address of your website.

Get back to me promptly.

People who take an inordinately long time to respond to e-mails are my number one pet peeve. When an email comes from a client or contains time-sensitive information, it is crucial to respond as quickly as possible. Customers often send an email in the hopes of getting a prompt answer to their inquiry. They would write you a letter, send you a fax, or leave a message on your voicemail if they did not want an immediate response. Each and every email should receive a response within twenty-four hours at the very latest, and preferably within the same working day. If you are unable to respond to the email in its entirety right away, you should at the very least write an acknowledgment that you have received it and that you will get back to the sender as soon as possible.

Check each and every email before sending it.

There is no greater way to embarrass oneself than by sending an email in a hurry and letting it go out into the world. It is clear that many people do not care to proofread their emails before sending them, as indicated by the numerous typos and errors in grammar and spelling that are present in the vast majority of emails. Aside from this, reading your email as if it were being received by the receiver can enable you to convey your point more clearly, reducing the likelihood of misunderstandings and unwanted comments being made.

Avoid engaging in conversation regarding private details.

Sending a message over email is comparable to sending a postcard. If you do not want a written record of your remarks or the information shared with others, then you should refrain from sending it so that it does not leave your computer and become the property of the end user, who is free to do whatever they like with it. In addition, you should never make any comments in an email that are libelous, sexist, or racially discriminatory, even if the message is meant to be humorous. There have been cases in which email conversations have been used as evidence in court. You definitely do not want to travel down that path.

Avoid writing in all capitals.

When communicating by email, writing in all capital letters gives the impression that you are shouting; therefore, you should try to use a more subdued tone. All caps are difficult to read and can provoke an angry response from the receiver if they misunderstand the intention of the email that you are sending them. Writing in a conventional sentence style should be used when composing emails. Remove your hands from the keyboard and deactivate the Caps Lock button.

Steer clear of abbreviations and emoticons if you can.

When sending emails to clients or coworkers, it is best to avoid using abbreviations like "by the way" and "laugh out loud. Because it is possible that the recipient does not know what the meanings of the abbreviations are, using them in business emails is not suitable in most cases. The same can be said about emoticons, such as the happy face with the :-) next to it or the sad face with the :-). If you are unsure as to whether or not the recipient understands what the meaning of an acronym is, it is best not to use one.

Avoid using backgrounds and other nonsensical graphics.

Actually, an entrepreneur friend of mine sent me an email with his signature block containing an animated smiley face holding a gloved hand aloft in the air. If Walt Disney himself had sent the email, I wouldn't have been surprised in the least. Coming from a relatively modest IT firm, I couldn't help but grimace. There isn't much to make one happy in that regard.

Keep in mind that business email is a serious form of communication.

You wouldn't dare send a formal letter to a client that didn't have a salutation, a well-planned body of text, and a signature at the conclusion of it. You should proceed in the same manner while using email. The format of an appropriate business email should be similar to that of a letter. It ought to begin with a greeting, contain the content of the message, end with a sign-off, and end with the sender's signature.

The following time, we will talk about problems with email that larger businesses really ought to be concerned about. If your organization does not already have a written policy regarding email, you should consider instituting one. Find out why you should tune in next week.