Tipskey - Work Email Tips

Posted on 2008-07-03 　

Work Email Tips

Be polite in our email
Address the recipient's name (Hello John, Hi John, Dear John) to prevent that we are seen as arrogant. And this is to ensure the recipient know that the mail is really for him. A lot of emails are sent by mistake nowadays.

Do not start a sentence with 'Kindly'. 'Kindly' is not the same with 'please'. 'Kindly', although by surface looks good, is however more to commanding the recipient to do something or sarcastically asking the recipient for help.

Do not use all capital letters unless we really mean to be arrogant.

Do not use all small caps. Work email should be formal. We should show that we regard the interaction with the recipient seriously.

It is OK to write email when we are angry but we should save it as draft first and only decide to send it or not in the next morning. And when we receive this kind of email, do not reply in a harsh way.

Avoid negative language. 'Please attend the meeting so that we can solve the problem' is better than 'If you do not attend the meeting, we cannot solve the problem'.

For effective communication
Write a specific subject that concerns the recipient even if it is a forwarded mail. Be specific. If you need help today then you can even add 'Please help today' in front of your subject line so that others will not think it is just another mail for his/her info only that he/she will open the mail a few days later.

Do not use short form.

Include enough information. For example we want a recipient in Malaysia to send us something by 0900 CET, then we should write 'by 1500 Malaysian time'. Doing some due diligence means helping ourselves.

Mention one topic per email. If we have another thing to talk about, write a new email.

Try write in point forms. Forget what the teachers taught us in school that we should not write in points.

If you ask a question, tell the recipient the things that you already know so that he/she will tell you only the things that you want to know. Being specific in the question will help too.

Read the email we write before sending to minimize chance of mistake. At the same time we should also try break any sentence we feel that is long into short ones.

If we can see the person face-to-face to communicate our words, then it is better not to send email. If someone sitting near us does send us this email, do not reply but walk to his / her place to discuss about the matter.

Redundancy
Work email is generally used to request for or give info. For example reply with just "Thanks", "Noted" etc should not be sent.

Avoid putting disclaimer clause if it is not compulsory in your company. We are still responsible of the content of the email anyway even if there is a disclaimer clause.

Avoid putting full name card (company name, company registration number, phone number, fax number). Putting email address under your name is even more unpractical. Likewise with company website address as the recipient should know it from your email address.

Avoid slogan or motto. It is flamboyant.

Use 'please' instead of 'I will be grateful if you' or 'you should' in front of your request. This is about politeness too as discussed above.

Avoid norminalized verbs (nouns that come from verbs, for example 'suggestion' is formed from 'suggest') because they usually need more words to say. For example 'Please suggest how to solve it' is shorter than 'Please give suggestions on how to solve it'. Norminalized verbs are also weaker than their root verbs.

Capitalizing words as you like is redundancy too. We tend to pick up the habit of using capital letters after getting into corporate world. "The auditors meet the auditees" is better than "The Auditors meet the Auditees".

Others
When there are five emails total in a chain thread, we should break the chain. Pick up the phone / stand up to resolve the issue.

Avoid attaching big file to the email. For example if we want to send a picture, we should use JPG, GIF or PNG format instead of BMP.

Do not use 'cc' (courtesy copy or carbon copy) if it is not important to that person. And do not assume it is important to that person. I think everyone has experienced getting work mails that make him/her wonder why he get those anyway. Information overloads today so we should do the courtesy of filtering info for others instead of sending 'courtesy copy'.

If you are a contact point of the company to an external party (e.g. a customer) and there is some information given by your colleagues to be passed on to the external party, review it first to avoid sensitive information leakage. Do not just forward it because you will still be liable. Doing this will also help you gain overview of things that will help in your work.

Unless our job is mostly expecting emails, we should turn off the new mail notification (popup etc) to avoid focus stealing.

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