Dear Reader,
We all take advantage of the communication era. With minimum effort and waiting time reduced to zero, our messages reach anyone, in any corner of the world. It’s been estimated that a number of almost 300 billion emails are being sent daily around the globe. Surely you are contributing to this figure as well. In fact, the EMAIL is the main communication channel you are using in the office, to either relate to clients or colleagues, or both.
But how professional are the emails that you send? To get a reasonable answer, take a test. Let’s say that each of the points below account for 10% professionalism. In case you are confident enough to tick them all in green, congratulations! Your emails are 100% professional. If not, then do the math and make a strategy on how to improve.
1. The subject line comprises of maximum 7 words which describe best the content of the message.
2. Your email doesn’t begin abruptly, but with a friendly/formal opening greeting, depending on the case. By looking at how people sign-off their emails, you can get a good indication of how they want to be addressed.
3. The body of the email has a neat appearance: a single format type, no words written in caps only (unless you really want to shout at the recipient), no typos or grammar mistakes.
4. If you do need to stress something, then you use bold or italics.
5. You approach a minimum of topics per email (one topic is recommended), so that the receiver doesn’t get confused or distracted.
6. You get your facts right and double-check before sending data around.
7. Acronyms are left out, unless you are certain that the recipient speaks your coded language.
8. Your message is nicely wrapped up: the closing maintains the tone of the email content (whenever in doubt, choose ‘thank you’ – that almost never fails) and your signature stays within the limit of 5-6 lines.
9. You acknowledge time is a valuable resource, so your email is short and to the point – after all, that’s the exact type of emails you would want to receive, right?
10. Large-sized attachments benefit of special treatment: you first ask the recipient if it is alright to send them and if the necessary software to view the files is available at his/her end.
Best Regards,
Experteer