Most of us know how to send an email but when you go from college to the
professional world there are different rules and expectations associated with
it. Poor email etiquette can actually sabotage your professional career so
what are some tips in order to make your emails better and more professional?
Hi, I'm Adriana Girdler, president of CornerStone Dynamics and an efficiency
expert and in this video I'm going to share with you some tried and true
techniques that are going to ensure that your emails rock!
Avoid "reply all." In most cases, reply all's can be the
bane of existence in corporations. They just clutter up the inbox. Really think
long and hard when you are going to be replying to an email, only 'reply all' if
people truly need to know the answer but besides that, just reply to the person
who needs to know. Include a subject line that is relevant and descriptive. We can
get hundreds of emails in our inbox so how do we know which one to go to that
is really important? Be specific, one of the techniques I use,
if I have an action for someone I'll literally put bold in my subject line,
ACTION NEEDED and then a very specific aspect of what it is I need or if it's
something that's urgent I'll go, URGENT so it pops out. You really want to be
specific to let your email stand out from the rest
Add email addresses last. I'm telling you this one from experience, alright, and you
do not want to go through this but we've all had at one point in our careers sent
an unfinished email to someone or we actually sent an email to the wrong
person because they had the same name and we all know with emails it get pops
up because we get really busy and the name pops up and we send it. Do your
email addresses last, it allows you to reflect on what you wrote, you can then
put in the people's name properly and you're not gonna have that problem of
sending an unfinished email accidentally or the wrong email because you finally
had an opportunity to read it and didn't like what was read. Respond promptly. Okay
so I usually say within 24 hours, is the golden rule, it's really aggravating when
you send an email out to someone and they don't reply back. You may not have
the answer right away but even the courtesy of just saying, 'Got it, I'll get
back to you, I need more time,' is huge, it shows how professional you are and
it's very much appreciated. Never insult anyone in an email, never ever ever ever
ever! No, don't do it. Now, you may be saying, 'that's a given' but you will be
surprised when you're in the moment and you're angry and
upset and you write an email off, you feel better but emails are paper trails and
someone will forward that email and you do not want to have that around, just don't
do it, don't insult people, it is not worth it for your professional career.
Write a clear and concise message get to your point
immediately in the email, bullet it because what happens is most people are
scanners so if you have this long-winded email and you buried information within
it, no one's gonna get to it because they don't know. Be clear and concise and if
you actually go into a very long email really consider putting it as a word
document or in excel, whatever your information is, as an attachment, so
therefore your email now becomes more action-oriented and then they can look
at that attachment in order to get the detailed information. Out of office alert.
It is really important that when you are away for a period of time, whether that's
vacation, a business trip, or you're not going to be really able to reply back to
an email as quickly as you want within that 24 hour rule, put an out-of-office
alert on your emails. It allows people to know that you're really busy and you're
not going to be able to respond to them. It gives them the information so that
they're not wondering and allows you to be the professional rockstar you are
because you're being courteous and kind. Know when to pick up the phone, email is
awesome but not everybody checks their email every day and in fact based on the
efficiency world, I do, I tell people only check their email in the morning and at
the end of the day so really know when to pick up the phone. If you have a
meeting cancellation, call people and let them know, if you have bad news, don't
deliver to an email, do it one on one. Know when to use an email and know when to pick
up the phone. Label your attachments, so you're sending out
an email, you have quite a few attachments with it,
label them properly, don't leave them in the file name that they originally were
slated in so if it is a picture and it's called "jpg 1" change it to what exactly
it is because when you have a slew of attachments you may not know exactly
what it's going to be when you open it. Now part of that is in the body of your
email with the bullet point, literally say and label what the attachment is,
give a brief description so people know which one they need to go to first.
Regardless of the communication that you're using, proper etiquette will never
go out of style. Tell me what you think, write "email etiquette rocks" in the
comments below, I'd love to hear from you. Please subscribe to my channel, pass this
along to your friends, family and colleagues, I look forward to hearing
from you and I'll see you at the next video, bye!