Understanding business email etiquette<\/p>\n
By Ulrike Hill<\/em><\/p>\n I was once a product manager in the IT industry. I was new to the job and eager to please. One day an important client criticised my product. I took his comments personally. Whinging back at the office about the client, my director was unsympathetic. He told me to \u2018take the emotion out of business\u2019 and to stick to the facts.<\/p>\n Fast forward many years later. My director\u2019s advice still resonates with me. Thinking back, his advice was relevant in a world where technology did not dominate business\u00a0communication. Technology has created a sterile\u00a0business world. Business people are interacting mainly via\u00a0email\u00a0and are spending less time speaking to each other. Too often misunderstandings tend to creep into written messages.<\/p>\n How can we avoid misunderstanding that may happen without the sender realising it?<\/p>\n In the hurried world of business, people forget the use of \u2018Dear X\u2019 and dive straight into the message of the email. Acknowledge that there is a human being on the receiving end of the email. I prefer using \u2018Hello\u2019 and the person\u2019s name. Ensure that you get the spelling of the person\u2019s name correct. If not, the message you are sending to the receiver is \u2018You are not important enough to me\u2019.<\/p>\n The sender is in a rush and does not notice that THE CAPS LOCK IS ON. THE ENTIRE EMAIL IS WRITTEN IN UPPER CASE. People tell me\u00a0that it is not a big deal. But it is a big deal. Using caps lock is the same as shouting. Imagine the response if the email is about an over-due payment. Or meeting an urgent deadline.<\/p>\n During my discussions with a few business people, some felt that using emoticons reveal the human behind the email. I disagree. Emoticons are for friends. Emoticons are for informal communication. Emoticons do not make the email human. Humans talk.<\/p>\n Use words that will express the human. Instead of demanding, ask. Instead of diving straight into the main message, introduce a personal line like \u201cI trust you are well.\u201d It is more formal than the \u201cHow are you?\u201d but it does show that you are interested in the recipient\u2019s well-being.<\/p>\n Like the forgotten greeting, signing off the email is taken for granted. Worse still, it is forgotten completely. This is the same as walking out of someone\u2019s home without saying goodbye.\u00a0The sign-off can reveal a lot about you. Create a professional ending to your email. \u2018Faithfully\u2019 \u00a0sounds fake, ditto \u2018Yours truly\u2019 and imagine how a client may react to \u201cWith love\u201d. Signing off can be professional and still reveal the human part of business.<\/p>\n These are a few suggestions for email users to create the \u2018human face\u2019 behind the words and to reduce misunderstandings. Business is tough so the human touch without the \u2018touchy-feely\u2019 will go a long way to maintaining a professional relationship.<\/p>\n Ulrike Hill provides a writing\u00a0workshop to assist people with email etiquette. Contact: writer@ulrikehill.co.za or call 071 636 8028 (South Africa only).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understanding business email etiquette By Ulrike Hill I was once a product manager in the IT industry. I was new to the job and eager to please. One day an important client criticised my product. I took his comments personally. Whinging back at the office about the client, my director was unsympathetic. He told me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[91,167,166,74],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-01business-writers","tag-email","tag-emotional","tag-etiquette","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ulrikehill.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Acknowledge the recipient<\/h3>\n
I am shouting at you<\/h3>\n
Smiley faces<\/h3>\n
So how are you, really?<\/h3>\n
Saying goodbye is hard to do<\/h3>\n