Let's All Remain Professional in Cyberspace

 

This may be hard for some of you to believe, but when I started my career in the Insurance business over eighteen years ago, we did not have email. Yes, you read correctly, we did not communicate to parties outside our building through email (we did have a form of internal electronic communication). We used to communicate through formal business letters, printed out on company letterhead, and proofread meticulously before being mailed. While I admit that email allows us to be much more timely and efficient, I think there are lessons we can learn from the "old way" we did things. The biggest issue I see is that email communication has the tendency to be informal. We all use email in our personal lives, and there is nothing wrong with being informal and cute in personal emails. Business emails, on the other hand, need to always be treated as formal, professional communications that leave a permanent impression of both you and your company upon its reader. Below are some guidelines to follow when sending professional communications via email.

1. If you are not yet working but looking for employment, make sure your email address is professional. The address you use in your personal life may not be appropriate in the business world (e.g. cooldude@party.com). Be sure to create a separate email using something that identifies you but is fairly generic, for example your first initial and last name.

 

2. Always put something meaningful in the subject line. It needs to be concise and relevant to the content of your email. Never leave the subject line blank and never use all capital letters.

 

3. In most cases, include a greeting ("Dear Bob", "Good Morning, Bob", etc.) and signature ("Best Regards, Jane", "Sincerely, Jane", etc.). A signature block is a good way to accomplish this. Keep in mind that this level of formality may not always be necessary, but again remember to think about with whom you are communicating and how you are presenting yourself as a business professional.

 

4. Always, always, always check spelling and grammar. I cannot emphasize this enough. When we used to print everything before mailing, we had at least one other person proofread letters before they were mailed. You do not need to print every email, but re-read once before hitting "send". Spellcheck is great, but it doesn't always catch everything (if your misspelling is actually a word, but just the wrong one), and does not check grammar and tone of your email.

 

5. Speaking of tone, this is one of the costliest issues I have seen with email. Remember that the person on the other end cannot see your body language (a big part of our communication in person) and cannot hear your tone. Something you may mean as a joke can come across entirely differently to the person on the other end of the email. Be careful with this! I have seen many misunderstandings get out of hand purely because of different interpretations of email communication. If your tone is important, it may be better to pick up the phone. Also, avoid trying to joke around or being sarcastic in business communication—when it works it is fine, but it can really backfire. Even if the intended recipient understands your meaning, another reader may not. Think about what someone reading your email out of context might think, which often happens when emails are forwarded or, even worse, subpoenaed for a legal action.

 

6. Which leads to another word of caution—email is permanent. Whatever you are typing could be preserved forever. Do you really want to put certain things in writing for (potentially) others to see? Remember that business emails sent through business computers are different from your personal emails.

 

7. Think before you forward an email. Make sure it is appropriate for the recipient to see everything in the email you are forwarding, and that the original sender would approve (in your judgment) of having his/her message forwarded to the recipient. Along those same lines, make sure you have the appropriate recipients when hitting "reply to all"—you may not want everyone on the original list to be included in your reply.

 

8. It is good practice to address the email last after you have typed, spellchecked and proofread it, and included any attachments. This helps eliminate hitting the "send" button too early.

 

9. Remember again that this is formal business communication (have I stressed this enough?). Do not use abbreviations, fancy colors or fonts, smiley faces or other symbols. It is best to stick with your email default font and text size. Remember to treat an email as if you were sending a letter on your business letterhead.

 

10. If you have a slogan or quote after your signature, make sure it is professional and appropriate. You are representing not just yourself but your company as well.

 

11. If sending an attachment, make sure to check the size and send an email warning and/or follow up to the recipient since many companies have a size limitation on attachments and your email may never get through. Also, large attachments can slow down their email, especially if they are trying to check email while traveling.

One last related piece of advice - please do not be afraid to use the phone. If you have gone back and forth on an issue through email and there seems to be some confusion, it may be better to pick up the phone and have a conversation. Email is great for following up to document a recent phone conversation or meeting, but sometimes those conversations need to happen on the phone or in person first.

While we all truly appreciate the speed and efficiency of email, it is critical to remember that we are business professionals representing ourselves and our companies in all our communications. Above all else, we need to remain respectful, appropriate and professional at all times.