7 tips for improving email etiquette

Thanks to share this. it's usefull.

I use email for class. Sometimes it is responded to and other times it is not. Having an important question or raising an issue should not be disregarded. My teachers reply to email when it is pleasant and not questioning. Being able to challenge something should be responded to. Everyone agrees to disagree, yet the challenge is taken as an insult to character instead of a computer glitch or error. It's tough out here without cyberspace. Thank you.

The most anoying thing is mis-spellings and the use of wrong words. My accountant refuses to spell check and often substitutes the wrong word (as their for there). Since he doesn't double check his e-mail, I am wondering about my tax return! I have had a great relationship with him but he makes me wonder when he sends out "garbage".

One important item.... in the signature block include your contact phone numbers in case someone needs to phone you but they do not yet have your number. We work with very large customers and deal with new contacts daily. If they do not include their phone number we have to wait until they respond which delays very important critical interchanges.

I check emails every couple of hours or so and then batch process them.
For sending, I have the mail program hold them and then send them out 3 times a day. It's a good process for me since it:
i) avoids typos getting out
ii) enables potential edits that I may think of
iii) allows me to calm down if I responded a little brashly
iv) delete if somebody else has addressed the issue later in my inbox

I also added a sig file saying "I check emails 2-3 times a day and will respond within 24hours - if it's more urgent, call me on xxx-xxx-xxxx"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who cares
there are no jobs out there anyway !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
-:(

I doubt that people still believe messages coming from your phone mean that you're out of the office. I know plenty of people that answer email from internal meetings on their cell phone. Heck, sometimes I do it from my desk because something else is open on my computer. Busy people, moreover, are often on the go, and that doesn't mean they're playing hooky.

For myself, I changed the footer on the cell phone message to say the following: Sent via cellphone. Please excuse the occasional finger fumble. ;-)

And yes, that is an emoticon at the end. And no, I'm not a fan of promoting the cell phone maker with their self-serving default messages, but I do believe it's important to let my email reader know that the message came from my phone. Besides letting them know why the occasional typo might slip in, I also believe it's important to let them know why my usual detailed signature block is missing.

The best advice in this article? "Be concise". Not disregarding the obvious advantages of e-mail, I wonder if we had more time to actually do our job before e-mail.

This is a great website for email etiquette - glad to see that many issues that have always bothered me about email communication styles are well founded.

I will recommend the site as a guide to friends and colleagues.

I'm so grateful that someone is offering the etiquette of professsionalism for email; being in the infancy stage of this medium, it is importatnt to establish boundaries and guidelines. Great information.

I agree with those who think emoticons indicate the tone. The challenge is not to overssue them

And, I appreciate the "smartphone" message. It does alert the receiever re formatting issues. I think we are moving past caring if someone is in an office or not ... remote workers are more prevalent all the time.

Great article and good points. I also find it helpful if you are writing an important email to print it and proof it before sending as it's easier to find mistakes on a printed copy. I also agree with Kris about writing from the bottom down - although I would suggest to attach the item first as people often forget to add the attachments!

In regards to sending an email when angry - I absolutely agree with your article. I have often found that if you just sit back and calm down you will often decide not to send an angry reply and instead have time to think of an intelligent response. It is also an idea to decide when and where to pick your battles as sometimes it's just not worth it long term.

Lastly I like emoticons, but there is definitely a time and place for them and I would not use them with a new client or someone you have yet to build a working relationship with.

Great article, thanks for the suggestions. A couple of my general rules of thumb are; 1) if an e-mail "conversation" reaches three exchanges, I pick up the phone or visit the other person's office, and 2) I try to avoid the one word e-mail replies like "Thanks" or "OK".

I like the articles, keep them coming! The comment section is nice too. I find the information based on work, life experience interesting and informative.

I agree with the "do not copy" everyone on the team if it is not necessary; but at the bank where I work, it is done everyday all day long and it is very annoying to have to slow down productivity to read them.

I think the information in this article is fantastic. I hope to soon have a work from home job and will do most of my communication by email. This will really help me.

I couldn't agree more. We are often in such a rush, these days, to get things off our plate that we can end up shooting ourself in the foot when it comes to business communication. It's far too easy to fire off a response without first taking time to think about the message -- let alone PROOF it!

I shared a few more email etiquette tips on my blog recently -- including "writing the topic of the email in the subject line." It can be tough to find emails if there are various topics within one email. Keep it simple and keep the topics separate for each email.

http://etiquettepage.com/business-etiquette/the-10-commandments-of-email-etiquette

I like being able to track the different messages in the body of an email. With some matters we will need to know rather it came from the iPhone, email, or blackberry (sent from my blackberry-statement). I think you should keep the information in the body of the email. Nine times out of ten the customer shouldn't see our emails anyway. This information could be helpful for any legal matters. Also, it's good to know that an employee wasn't in the office at 3AM, they used a blackberry instead.

I like this article. Keep giving us more good stuff.

I learned from someone a long time ago that the best way to write an email is from the bottom up. Meaning you write your content, then include any attachments, then enter the recipients into the To and CC field. It doesn't eliminate all errors mentioned in this article, but it will help, I guarantee it!