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Office Email Tips

For most of us we will send one, or a hundred, emails a day. Following these tips may help eliminate some common mistakes. This has been posted before, but I’ve added some things since that original post.

Enter the addresses after the message is composed.
Many messages are sent before they are finished. Waiting to add the addresses until the end will keep the message in your draft bin until it’s ready to be sent.

Attach the attachments first.
We have all sent or have been sent a message with a missing attachment. Also be sure that it is attached and not embedded in the email. I’ve made a recent mistake like that and embedded a 4 meg pdf file in the email to a group of people. They couldn’t see the file and on their reply back the large file was in their reply. Needless to say this used a lot of band width and storage space.

Remove large attachments from replies.
Band width and storage space, see above.

Use spell and grammar check.
In business one should consider an email as being no different than a business letter and should have a professional look.

Keep personal messages out of business emails.
It’s possible that the email may need to be sent to an associate or supervisor for additional actions. They won’t want to know how the fishing trip went.

Don’t add a new subject to an ongoing thread and don’t combine threads.
When new subjects are added to an ongoing thread it can be confusing to the reader. If the reader only needed to be advised of what was going on, but the added subject needed their action, that action could be delayed. Combining threads generally just confuses everyone.

Address correctly.
If it’s an informational message to many members it’s a good idea to use the Bcc: field to protect other people addresses. This is really the only time the Bcc: field should be used. If sending to multiple persons with multiple assignments, or to let a supervisor or associate know the mail was sent, address the responsible person by name in the message.

Watch “Reply all”.
While most times the correct course of action is to Reply All at times you may only need your comment to be received by the sender. I have seen to many email responses that was replied to all when the sender really meant to reply to the original sender. One time it was a supervisor replying with a message to the sender that the original email should not have been sent causing a bit of embarrassment to both. It happens to the best of us since recently I did hit “reply all” realized I made a mistake, but some how instead of canceling the email hit “send’ sending a blank replay to nearly 100 people. (See above, the original message really should have been sent using the Bcc field.

Be sure to enter a subject.
The information that you put in your subject line can pass information to the recipient the importance of the message as well as how soon a respond may be needed. By leaving the subject line blank it may be ignored completely.

Check before hitting the send button.
Once the send button is press the email is in the stream and on its way to its recipient. It’s always a good idea to proofread the message and check that you have attached the attachments and addressed the message to the correct parties.

© 2007-2009 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights Reserved

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