Email Etiquette in the Business Environment

E-mail etiquette is often overlooked despite the fact that it plays an important role in conveying a professional image.

E-mails written to friends and family will be less formal and will not need to follow any particular guidelines or rules, but when writing to someone at a professional level the following guidelines and rules should be taken in to account.

1. If you do not have an e-mail address that is business like, please create one, fear it will be to your detriment. Addresses such as ‘sexy girl, star girl, wifey, saved and sanctified’ are considered to be inappropriate. Your name is most appropriate to be used in creating an e-mail address.

2.      With reference to the example above:

             a.       use a descriptive subject line; avoid leaving it blank or putting an 

                   irrelevant or general subject. Ensure that the subject is appropriate.

            b.        Address the recipient by name to add a personal touch to your letter 

                   and be sure to indicate the purpose of the e-mail.

            c.       DO NOT USE ALL CAPS!      

            d.      Avoid over using punctuation marks!!!!!!

            e.      Avoid using abbreviations such as 

                  IMHO (in my humble opinion) or TTYL 

                  (talk to you later), not even if you 

                  are familiar with the email recipient. 

           f.       Skip a line when starting a new paragraph. Avoid using tabs to signify

                a new paragraph, different email programs read tabs in different ways.

           g.      If you are sending an attachment, make note of it and describe what 

                the attachment is for in the body, some people are very wary of 

                attachments due to the threat of computer viruses.

         h.       Keep your emails as concise as possible without leaving out any

               important information.

         i.      Always leave a signature line, don't assume the person already knows 

              who you are.

        j.       Do not keep on sending the same message to the same person over and 

              over again; if they don't respond after a few days, send them an e-mail 

              inquiring if they received your first email.

       k.      Use spell check and proof read and revise your letter after it is done.

       l.       Use threads. If you get a message from someone and you are going to 

             respond, don't send a new message, simply hit the reply option on 

             your email, this keeps the original subject line with "Re:" in front of it.

      m.     If you are sending out an email to a large private list do not use 

             CC: (carbon copy) use BCC: (blind carbon copy) to protect 

             the addresses of the recipients.

           When you receive a message reply to it as soon as you have time to.