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Email Etiquette
Don’ts
- DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS – IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING.
- Don’t use acronyms, or abbreviate in business correspondences KWIM, LOL.
- Don’t use the emoticons in business emails. ):
- Don’t email jokes, photos, etc. that could be considered offensive by anyone! It will come back to bite you!
- Don’t reply to an email if it angered you. Take a deep breath, take your time and draft your response.
- Don’t be too casual in your writing. Choose the proper time to say Hi vs. Hello and addressing people by a first name or last name. Use the same guidelines as your phone conversations for your email correspondence.
- Don’t make your email a novel. Lots of people don’t like to read large volumes of text on a screen and with the advent of Blackberrys, iPhones, etc. the screens are smaller than a laptop or desktop. Keep your emails brief and to the point.
- If forwarding an email with an attachment, do not forward if the message has been sent to over 2-3 times. It is like opening a box to find another box. Save the attachment and reattach it to your message.
- Don’t use auto-responders and try not to use receipt emails unless necessary.
- Don't assume that your email is secure and private. In many corporate settings, your emails can be viewed by the appropriate people. Therefore, be mindful of what you say in your emails.
Do’s
- Do pay attention to Reply vs. Reply All. If the email is from one person and it was sent to others also, you may not want to reply to all and send your response to everyone else. In some cases Reply All works well, in others it does not
- Erase previous messages if they do not need to be sent back or to another person. Every time you reply or forward the previous message is tacked onto the end of the one you are sending. These can add up over time and slow things down.
- Resize your photos if attaching to an email. Images direct from your digital camera can be huge. This slows down the email and will also display huge on the receivers computer. Use the software that came with your camera to reduce the images to an appropriate size for email. (600 X 800 pixels or less)
- Do use BCC (Blind Copy) to send an email to multiple recipients. This hides their email from others, cleans up your email transmission also.
- Use spell check. It is built into most email programs. Nothing looks worse than misspelled words. Take a moment and read your message to check for grammar errors.
- If you need a prompt reply, or if the subject will take more than one or two emails to address, call the person instead. Otherwise, it is OK to email them.
- Use Subject Line.
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