Professional Email Writing

Imagine a situation where you have done all the hard work while following up on a lead with a potential customer and building a business case, or working hard on project deadlines for your manager. You are expecting to reap the fruits of your hard work. Just then, you could set off the potential customer/manager by writing a silly email.

Here are a few things which you can do to ruin your communication over emails, and how to avoid doing these mistakes, that is only if you wish to. J

• Not mentioning a clear and specific “Subject Line” or better without any subject line at all.
  Instead, use subject lines which

• describes the message content
• specifies if there are any actions required & due dates
• If you can type your entire message in the subject line and don’t need to write anything in the body of the message – do so!
• Blindly doing a “Reply to All” for a mail sent to you & marked to other persons in Cc.

Decide if this mail needs a reply to all the other recipients, and only when you are absolutely sure, then do it.

• Starting the mail by talking about anything but business.

In the first 1-3 lines of your email, specify what this email is about.

• Does it include action required?
• Does it require a reply back by a certain date?
• What information is contained that the reader will find necessary for their job?
• Mixing the To: and Cc: addresses.

Imagine sending a mail to a manager in To: with the subordinate in Cc:; wherein the manager required only information about the situation and the actual action needed to be taken by the subordinate. Be attentive about whom to put in To: and Cc:.

• Start discussing or talking in email.

When people start talking in email, please stop; instead pick the phone and give them a call.

• Carbon copying your manager on each mail.

You would not want to spam your manager’s mailbox with each little communication you are running. Take a wise decision on what he/she needs to know and accordingly mark him on those mails.

• Using All-Caps or No-Caps

All-Caps come across as shouting, and no-caps invoke the image of a lazy teenager. Regardless of your intention, people will respond accordingly.

• Overreacting to nuance in email.

Think before you react to some sort of nuance on a professional mail, as you would not want to regret it later. It is in your best interest to simply avoid doing it.

• Using bad formatting rules such as

·      Using different fonts throughout the message content

·      Using colored fonts in a professional email

·      Vaguely using bold, italic or underline font style

·      Not keeping the size of the font visible and constant

·      Not keeping the paragraph and line spacing legitimate and visually appealing

• Chat Lingo : Using short forms or slang (e.g. ‘u’ instead of ‘you’, ‘y’ instead of ‘why’, ‘r’ instead of ‘are’, etc). It would bring you across as some restless teenager chatting over yahoo or facebook, which certainly would not help your image.
• Assuming privacy.

              Unless you really intend to do it the wrong way, praise in public and criticize in private. Don’t send    anything over email that you wouldn’t want posted with your name attached in a meeting room.

• Attaching a file that your reader will have to download and open in a separate program, when you can just copy-paste the most important part of the document into the body of your message.

              If it’s the message that matters, recognize that attachments

·      consume bandwidth (do you want your recipient to ignore your request so as to avoid paying for     a mobile download?)

·      can carry viruses

·      don’t always translate correctly for people who read their email on portable devices.

• Not mentioning the list of attachments, if any, in the email.

              It is important that the receiver knows to look for and open the files. Also, appropriately name the     attachments so that the receiver knows what each document is just by looking at the name.

• Not provide a closing statement.

              Courtesy is always important, no matter how short the email really is. So, you can afford to begin with a       not-so-costly “thank you”. Then, include an accurate follow-up statement such as, “I will contact you               again with further information,” or “I look forward to hearing your ideas.” If a response is required, be         sure to state that information in the message.

• Not replying to emails for a long time.

If you need more than 24 hours to collect information or make a decision, send a brief response explaining the delay or even with just an acknowledgement that you have received the mail and will be doing the needful.

Email is an important aspect of dealing with your professional communications, if not the most important one. Surprisingly, most people do not pay enough weightage to drafting a proper email as they would do while drafting a legal document or a contract. Also, they lack a formal training on writing business emails, which might account for some of most important outcomes while dealing with their professional contacts.

While a professionally written email can leave your clients and colleagues impressed and lend an ear to what you have to say, on the other hand a loosely written email can get them off the hook and disinterested.