Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are waiting for a response for an email you sent days ago? Ever wondered what could have gone wrong in your email? If your answer is "yes", take a few minutes after composing the email to have a quick proofreading. You would save yourself from embarrassing situations or something worse like a communication breakdown. Since email communications have become ubiquitous, it is high time we keep in mind a few things before we hit the "Send" button.
Email Tips:
Here is a quick checklist for you to brief you through the "Art of effective email ".
Subject line
A Short description of the message contained inside a mail. Example: "Mortgage project "“ 7pm Deadline". A bad example would be using subjects like this "****important****", "urgent- open now!!" It is up to the person to decide if it is urgent for him or not.
Tone
Tone of an email plays an important role, as important that it can change the receiver's mentality about you.
"Good words are worth much and cost a little" "“ George Herbert
Well he is right! You should never yell, or use any slang in an email. Don't use capital letters in the content, they sound offensive. Use of proper salutation and signature adds to your professionalism quotient.
Familiarizing with emailing terms
Ever had the need to send a mail to multiple persons at the same time and not wanting them to know other recipients as well? That is what CC and BCC are for. Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) is recommended when it has to be sent for a large number of recipients.
Attachments
Attachments limit for a Gmail email is around 25 MB, but instead of using that memory, try sharing it from the drive.
End Notes
End your message with polite lines like "I look forward to hear from you ", "I appreciate your time or help ", "Thank you very much for your time". These are minute things which will help you build a good rapport with the person.
Spelling mistakes
This is one common problem in most of the emails. The fact that it is common doesn't mean that it doesn't make an impact on the recipient's mind. Have a good proofread of the mail which you composed before you send.
Concise Email
"The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate." - Joseph Priestley
What he means is that the more words you dump in your content, the more boring he becomes from reading that email. So keep it brief and informative and don't let control of the recipient's attention.
Official Email :
There are few extra steps other than above mentioned for a business email. They would be the need for "Reply to all". If you need to make a suggestion to the sender, be wise in your choice about "Reply" and "Reply to all". That small thing makes a very big impact; you wouldn't want to annoy your higher officials by including them in the recipients list. While responding to a mail chain which has lot of other cluttered information, edit them to make things clear.
Now you can clear your doubts about the "Why no reply?" questions you have been asking yourselves.
Tags: Career
Profession
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