- Talent Management
- November 30, 2011
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Is Your Email Gaffe Proof?
by Shaival S Trivedi
Emails are ubiquitous in this day and age. The traditional method of writing letters and mailing them by post is almost obsolete. This makes it imperative that we all are aware of the basic courtesies to be followed when communicating via emails. This is more so in the professional arena where basic overlooking of common business email etiquettes can mar professional relationships. It is quite amazing to note the gaffes in email writing from employees across the hierarchical divide.
In my 16 years of professional life, I have been witness to some really hilarious and at the same time serious and totally unavoidable errors in email communication; sometimes from people really senior in the hierarchy including CMDs and CEOs. Some of these have led to bitter altercations between the protagonists of the emails. It may shock you to know that many companies, who boast of having guidelines for usage of company crockery to travel of their employees, do not have a single guideline for email etiquette. It always makes me wonder why is it that most organizations simply do not understand the far reaching consequences of this simple easy to understand skill. A company that has simple guidelines and makes sure that employees adhere to these especially while communicating with external stakeholders, then that company is bound to get that professional edge over her competitors.
Moreover by educating employees as to what can and cannot be said in an email, you can protect your company from awkward liability issues.
Allow me to list a few pointers to effective email writing which can give you and your organization a professional edge and also save you from potential embarrassment in business communications over the web.
With tight schedules and overloaded work weeks, no one has the time to lead fables. Please keep the length of your email to the point and avoid going into semantics. Your email should convey the essence of your message in no more than two brief paragraphs. Also make sure that you do not get caught in long winding sentences wherein you yourself will lose the essence of what you are trying to say.
If there is a message trail, make sure you include it in your reply. This will allow all the parties to the email a quick access to the history of the issue being discussed and help all resolve it in the quickest manner possible.
Outlook has tools which assist you in making your email spelling proof and grammar proof. Please use them and avoid embarrassment of being critiqued for poor writing skills.
A lot of people do not read the final text of their mails before sending it. It is best to read your email from the point of view of the recipient. In this manner, any misunderstandings will be avoided and the tone and tenor of your message will remain sacrosanct.
Using a proper structure is very important as you are essentially writing into a screen from which reading is more difficult than reading from plain paper in the days of yore. It is good to write in short crisp paragraphs and leave a blank line between each paragraph. Also, it is always preferred to write in bullet points when writing a short email where you are pointing out salient features to the subject in question.
FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE DO NOT WRITE IN CAPITALS! IF YOU READ AN EMAIL WRITTEN IN THIS FORMAT, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL? OFFENDED RIGHT? DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD WISH THEM TO DO UNTO YOU!
More often, a lot of professionals send huge attachments without zipping or compressing them. A lot of these attachments are also quite unnecessary. Make sure you send only what is necessary and please zip up! It is pertinent to mention over here that having a good anti-virus program on your computer avoids embarrassment from a red faced customer being laced with virus ridden attachments in his mailbox.
When sending mailers to a large group of people, some mention names of all the recipients in the To: Field. This is simply not done as then the recipient will know that you have sent the mail to a large number of people and you violate the privacy of all the recipients as their email ids go public. This can be avoided by inputting all the recipients’ names in the Bcc: field or better still, using the feature of mail merge with Microsoft Outlook wherein the same mailer goes to each recipient individually.
Please be wary of using abbreviations and emoticons especially in business mails. You might want to avoid usage of ASAP, OMG, BTW and LOL!!! Also,
and other such emoticons are highly avoidable as they do not adhere to professional etiquette. Please limit them for messenger chats and social media updates. Also, the reader/s might not be aware of your innovative usage of shorthand and graphics. So just do not even consider it.
I presume we are living in a gender neutral society. Therefore, we must be sensitive to sexist remarks like ‘The contestant will make sure that he answers the multiple choice questions first.’ Instead gender neutral sentences like ‘The contestant will make sure that multiple choice questions are answered first.’
Please use disclaimers appended to the body of all your emails; internal and external. This will go a long way in protecting your company from collateral damage or liability. For example, if an employee writes a vitriolic mail flooded with racist and sexist remarks, the company can be thought to have shielded itself from damage, if their disclaimer includes stipulations that such remarks are not the company’s viewpoint and are personal remarks made by the sender.
This list is certainly not exhaustive but if one follows, the basic tenets as enumerated above, then major email faux pas will be avoided which will save you and your organization from avoidable embarrassment and flak. I would also suggest that each company have its own email policy which it makes sure is communicated to all the employees and that they are educated as to the benefits of good email drafting. This can make the difference between making and breaking a business deal folks! I end by quoting a wonderful line by someone anonymous that I read somewhere, “What a wonderful thing is the email, capable of conveying in a jiffy across continents, a warm human hand-clasp.”
1 Comment
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