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Subject: Email Etiquette
You dress the part, you turn up on time, you put in the extra hours to get your work completed on time and you are always polite so why does it seem that when it comes to composing emails they are more likely to resemble a drunken text sent on Saturday night than a professional communication? Have you noticed that the salutation no longer seems important, words are being abbreviated and emojis are becoming commonplace? Whilst this may be fine when emailing colleagues you know well, it isn’t good business practice to others.
Business communication
should be in a professional
manner regardless of what
medium you are using and you
should always aim to create a
credible impression of yourself
and your company. We’re not
saying that you need to revert
back to Shakespeare era
English but emails are
sometimes the only
interactions we have with clients and customers so take the time to ensure that they portray the message you want to convey rather than hastily pressing send when it is too late to call it back.
The first golden rule of emailing is never send jokes, videos or personal messages from your work address as it could be deemed to be a breach of trust and definitely won’t be viewed as a good use of company time. In the world of Big Brother, never assume that your activities aren’t being monitored and you could be reported for potentially opening the company up to viruses or breaking privacy laws. It is simple to set up your own personal email account on your phone or tablet so use this if essential during the working day.
The level of formality you use depends on how well you know the person you are communicating with but a good rule of thumb is to think of it as a letter so address the recipient correctly, use corporate fonts and colours, ensure you have run spell check and sign the email off with your signature. Also proof read your email, it is amazing how just one wrong letter or apostrophe can change the meaning of a word to an inappropriate one especially if you use autocorrect. This might seem a little long winded but in reality it will only take a few extra
seconds to pick up any grammatical errors or one- liners that might need a bit more explanation.
Check, check and triple check! Make sure you are sending to the right email address and that you have included the correct attachment. Work life can be hectic and it goes without saying that sometimes
we type emails without fully concentrating but the consequences of sending a customer the wrong price list or a secret product launch are serious and could result in disciplinary action.
Lastly humour is a great thing but funny as it may sound in our head, does it translate well on the email? Email content can be misinterpreted when we don’t have visual expressions or vocal intonations so it is probably safer to leave the jokes for when you leave the office.
Emails are a brilliant way of working faster and more efficiently but treat them as you would any other business communication by following the social and corporate rules you apply when you are at work.
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