Posts Tagged ‘Email’

This email is sick, and not in a good way. Its tone does nothing to encourage my compliance. Instead it makes me angry. Try rewriting it—make it positive, reader centred, friendly and persuasive.

Subject: Portable Signs

As you are all aware, portable signs are becoming the norm, yet this act stands in blatant contravention of the lease agreement. We are no longer willing to turn a bind eye to this total disregard of the rules and regulations set by the landlord.

We ask that all illegal signs be removed by September 15, 2010. Be aware that any signs found on the property after this date will be removed. All costs incurred in this exercise will be for the account of the offending party.

If you require a portable sign in the future, please contact Phil Roche at 555-1212. Phil will approve signs for a maximum period of two weeks. We remind all tenants that signage is still available on the building pylon sign.

Send your rewrite directly to me by email to jody@brunerbiz.com.

Good luck!

I received this feedback from a recent Email Essentials course. I wanted to share it because it raises an interesting question:

Hi Jody

I really liked your email training course that you put on for the HR & IT division.

There was just one thing that you mentioned during the training that concerned me.

You mentioned to cut back on sending “thank you” emails to people who are constantly working with user requests. I support users all day long and the thank you I get is the best part of my day. Also when I get a “thank you” it validates that they have read my email and they are satisfied with the results. If they don’t say thank you, I don’t know if they have even received my email and it is also quite ungrateful.

Cheers,

Silvia Giles

IT Business Analyst

I find people are quite divided on this issue. Personally, I like being thanked and I also like giving thanks. At the same time, I hear lots of people complain about the very same thing!

It’s often people providing service by email all day who resent having to open an email that just says thanks. For them, these messages are time wasters. I’ve heard a lot of venting on this subject—enough that I need to raise the issue in courses.

My suggestion is to know your reader—do they want to be thanked or not?  Maybe the best advice is assume you’ll be thanked or acknowledged UNLESS you add NRN (No Response Necessary) to your subject line. This means you need to explain—nicely—what NRN stands for.

What do you think? Does being thanked make you feel appreciated or annoyed? Do you think we are becoming less polite in general?

We read a terrific book on email called SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. Here are some pointers you might find helpful for writing emails with different purposes.

1. Requesting
Make sure your tone is appropriate for your reader. Consider your relationship: are you asking for something from a friend, your boss or your direct report? Every relationship will require a different tone. Always be polite and follow up gently.

It’s best to ask for one thing, or several things related to that one thing. Keep your focus clear. If you are requesting several unrelated things, write separate emails.

Make sure your request stands out. Put it up front—don’t bury it at the end of your message. Be direct and respectful.

2. Responding
Put your response up front, even if it’s bad news. If you are embedding several responses, use a different colour. If the email will be printed and filed, the colour won’t show up, so use a different font.

If you need time to respond, let the reader know. Use an out-of-office auto responder if you are away for a day or more.

3. Informing
Email is ideal for sharing information. To let your reader know it’s just information and there’s no need to act, use an FYI in the subject line. Being cc’d in an email similarly means you need to know about but not act upon the message.

4. Thanking
It’s polite to thank someone who does something for you, and it’s nice to be thanked. However, beware of never-ending thank you/you’re welcome chains. Make sure your reader wants to be thanked. Some don’t! If you don’t want your inbox cluttered up with thank you’s, use NRN (no response necessary) in your subject line. And remember to let people know what it means the first few times you use it.

5. Apologizing
If you’re apologizing for a big blunder, maybe email isn’t the best medium. Pick up the phone, or pay a visit instead.

6. Connecting
This is one thing email excels at. The best emails have a friendly tone and use the beginnings and endings to make a personal connection.

Thanks to the Internet and email, customers can reach you from all over the world. If you write emails to your global customers in English, it’s a good idea to avoid using idioms – words or phrases whose meanings are not understood from the individual words themselves.
For instance we understand what “spread ourselves too thin” means, but someone not familiar with this expression, or idiom, might be confused by it. Other examples of idioms include:

24/7
give the green light
a win-win
on the go
across the board
rain check
bend over backwards
right up our alley
brand new
think outside the box
fall through the cracks
touch base

Instead of using idioms, substitute a more literal expression.

For instance, instead of writing or saying, “I agree the session was Mickey Mouse,” write “I agree the session was poorly run.”

Have you noticed that the word tone has recently acquired a negative connotation, as in “Ohhhhh, that email has tone!”

Traditionally, tone refers to the emotional quality of a document. For instance, we might describe the tone of a document as conversational, formal, pompous, warm, or negative. It’s impossible to write anything without tone. Instead, a document’s tone can be effective or ineffective. We teach our participants how to achieve an effective tone by being more aware of the stylistic choices available to them and the context in which they write.

Today, when participants talk about emails with tone, they’re really talking about emails with that are negative and unprofessional. Emails with bad tone are bad for business. They contribute to a negative corporate culture, and emails with ‘tone’ sent to external customers can mean the loss of business.

It’s best to write emails with a positive attitude by paying attention to the words and expressions they choose. Many people use negative language without being aware that they’re doing so.

Here’s a list of negative words and phrases to avoid:

Afraid
Blame
But
Can’t
Don’t
Fault
Impossible
Late
Must
Obviously
Regret
Reject
Unfortunately
Blew it
Beyond repair
Huge problem
It won’t work
It’s not my responsibility
I’m fed up
Screwed it up
You can’t

And here are some words we recommend you use to create a more positive tone:

Agree
Alternatives
Approval
Best
Confident
Easy
Flexible
Generous
Idea
Improve
Increase
Loyal
Opportunity
Positive
A new perspective
Achieve goals
Commitment to the company (you, quality…)
Fresh thinking
Good point
Win-win situation

Can you add to these lists?

Some people use email for all their communicating, even though it’s not always the best way. Email is very good for giving good news and for sharing information. It’s important to remember that there are other ways to communicate.

Consider the following scenarios. What would be the best way to communicate?

1. You’ve sent an email and the recipient is clearly confused by your message. What’s your next step?
2. It’s 8:30 and you might be 5 minutes late for a 9am meeting with a vendor. You need to let your colleague (also attending the meeting) know.
3. You want to give your direct report some feedback—some positive, some negative.
4. You need to communicate confidential account information with a client.
5. You are creating a newsletter and have sketched out how you want it laid out. How should you send this to your designer?
6. You want to commend an employee for doing an excellent job on a project.
7. You want to share a draft of a progress report with your team.
8. You want to break up with your girlfriend/boyfriend.

Our suggestions:

1. Pick up the phone—the confusion will most likely escalate if you stick to email.
2. Text message, instant message, or phone call.
3. Face-to-face. Email is only useful for giving good news and sharing information.
4. Phone call or face-to-face.
5. Fax, or scan and email.
6. Letter. They’re more formal and show you’ve gone out of your way.
7. Email is excellent for circulating documents. But if your email server has file size constraints, post the report to a shared drive and send a link instead.
8. Face-to-face for sure. Show some respect!