Tips for conducting business via email.
When using email for conducting business, it s important to remember your tone must be reflective of this. All letters should follow proper business format. Your email represents your place of business. Just as you d watch what you say in a meeting or on the phone, you should do so with email. Keep slang to a minimum and offensive language in check.
Whenever possible, keep email short and to the point. Reading from a computer screen is more difficult than reading from paper. Long manifestos will only cause one s eye to stray and attention to wander. Make it brief but get your point across. In order to stave off repeated emails, answer all questions in your first note. If all bases are covered, there will be no reason to continuously put off tasks to respond to more queries.
Personalize all templates. If using a form letter, make sure you edit out previous recipients information and fill in all necessary fields with information best suiting the person to whom the email is addressed. It will not bode well for you or your place of business if a client or potential client receives an email addressed to someone else.
Respond to emails in a timely manner. Nothing turns a prospective client off more than being put on hold. Don t wait days to respond to queries, especially if you happen to be in a customer service position.
Don t use all caps. Not only is it difficult on the eyes, but all caps indicates yelling and anger. To do this may send the wrong message to the recipient.
Follow all rules of grammar and punctuation. Don t use abbreviations or Instant Message lingo. Spell out all words, capitalize when necessary and watch your punctuation. Avoid using emoticons in business letters. Clients and colleagues don t need little happy faces to indicate you said something funny.
Remember to enter in the Subject. If the recipient sees this item is blank, he may consider it spam or a joke email and delete it or put it aside for later. If the email is to be read immediately, attach a flag it, or notate this in the subject line. If it s not an emergency, however, don t make it seem as if it is. This is akin to crying wolf, and no one will take future urgent emails seriously.
When sending a mass email, do your best to use the blind c.c. option. No one wants his or her email address sent to hoards of people without permission. Also, this means those who respond with a reply to all will send their response to everyone on their list. These people might not want all those reciprocal emails. Use blind copies and always make sure those who receive a reply actually want them.
Never forward jokes or inappropriate material from your place of business. This is the sort of thing that can land one in serious trouble with one s employer. Never forward chain letters, urban legends or virus hoaxes. The recipient will most likely find them annoying and will not want to open future emails from you.
Keep in mind that you and the recipient may not be the only ones reading the email. Many businesses now have policies in place allowing them to access employees email accounts and Internet histories. Someone may also forward your email to another party. Don t say anything you wouldn t want others to know.
Proof read carefully. Once you hit the send button, it s unlikely the email can be recalled. In addition to grammatical errors, you don t want to fire off an email in anger. If need be, write your mail, but don t send it. Come back to it an hour or two later to see if you still feel the same way.
Email is an important, time saving business tool. Without it, we d have to resort to telephone calls, faxes and even business meetings. Being able to discuss key points electronically is a convenience for many. Just remember to be professional.
As long as you use this tool properly, it will continue to work for you with positive results.
