Email Etiquette Rules In Corporate World

Emails!!! Mail the document…Keep the client in the loop…Reply to each and every mail…these are among the everyday conversations that happen in and around the corporate environment. This further implies that emails are definitely a big part of company communications to customers, to business partners, and internally within the company.

Why Have Email Rules?

This is surely an important topic to discuss. You may agree to the point that sometimes, email is the only communication your customer may have with your organization.

In the corporate world, some of the employees perform a lot of unprofessional things like mentioning silly comments, animated characters, going crazy with colors, or writing emails in an unprofessional manner. These common mistakes tend to make corporate emails appear akin to private emails.

23 Rules for Corporate Email Etiquette

You have to have corporate email etiquette if you want to be taken seriously. Here are 23 rules to follow:

Rule 1 – Answer swiftly

Our customers send us an email because they want quick responses. The golden rule for email is to reply as early as possible. Preferably, within the same working day. On the off chance that you can’t respond immediately, simply send an email affirming receipt and say that you will get back to them. This will facilitate the customer’s mind!

Rule 2 – Use a meaningful subject line

Try to use a subject that is meaningful to the recipient as well as yourself. For instance, when you send an email about a product, it is better to mention the actual name of the product, it also makes it easier to search for previous emails when the subject line is relevant and specific to the content of the email.

Rule 3 – Don’t abuse the “Reply to All”

Use ‘Reply to All’ in the event that you truly require your message to be seen by every individual who got the original message. Sending off irrelevant or unnecessary replies to everyone on the list is just annoying and confusing if communication is vital between all parties in an email thread.

Use the Reply to All to keep everyone in the loop. If you only use Reply in such a case, the recipient may have to forward your email to everyone else, which is frustrating and disjointed.

Rule 4 – Use the BCC Field

When sending to multiple people, some people put all the email addresses in the To: field. There are two drawbacks to doing that:

(1) The recipient knows that you have sent the same message to a large number of recipients.

and;

(2) You are publicizing someone else’s email address without their permission.

Instead, consider using the Bcc: field. Put the mailing list group name in To: field in their email (leaving the To: field blank may look like spam). If you have Microsoft Outlook and Word you can do a mail merge so each recipient receives their own email, or create a mailing group in your email software if it has that utility.

Rule 5 – Don’t leave out the message thread

You need to incorporate the first mail in your answer, at the end of the day, click ‘Reply’, rather than ‘New Mail’. We all receive enormous emails and we can’t remember each and every individual email. To skip the thread may take a fraction longer in download time, but it saves the recipient time looking for the related emails in their inbox.

Rule 6 – Read your email before sending it

Treat emails like any other official company document. Read it before you send it. Spelling and grammar errors are just as unfortunate in email as anywhere else in your corporate correspondence.

Pay special mind to potentially mistaken assumptions, tone, and inappropriate remarks. We utilize email since it is quick and simple. However, that quickness may cause more inconvenience than you anticipated.

Rule 7 – Confidential information

Email is just too risky a place to include confidential information. Ask yourself if you would want the content of your email displayed on a bulletin board. Never make offensive, sexist, or racially segregating remarks in emails, even as a joke.

Rule 8 – Abbreviations & emoticons

Be careful using email abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laughing out loud) in business emails.

Even in today’s scenario, some people still don’t know what they mean, so it’s better to drop them. And emoticons, such as the smiley 🙂 don’t belong in a business email unless a relaxed form of communication has long been established with the customer.

Rule 9 – Don’t attach unnecessary files

Whenever possible, try to compress the attachments and keep only send attachments when they are productive. Also, make sure you have good virus software to scan the outgoing emails – a customer would not be happy if you send them documents riddled with viruses!

Rule 10 – Don’t forward junk

Do not forward chain letters, virus hoaxes, chain email solicitations for charitable causes even if they sound bona fide, and have funny pictures and jokes. Would you put these things on your corporate letterhead? I don’t think so. So, think before you leap!

Rule 11 – Be concise

Don’t make an email longer than it needs to be. Email is harder to read than printed communications. A long email can be extremely disheartening and can be surrendered before the recipient gets to your last point the distance down at the bottom. In the event that it has long so, consider including a rundown at the highest point of the email.

Rule 12 – Answer all questions & more

Make sure you answer all the questions in your reply. If you do not answer all the questions in the original email, you’re wasting your own, your company’s, and your customer’s time.

Worse still, you are leaving the customer frustrated. By noting all inquiries and further requests, you are establishing an awesome connection and reflecting mindful client benefit or service.

Rule 13 – Make it personal

Do you know that the most effective word in marketing is “you”? Not only should the email be personally addressed, but it should also include personal, i.e. customized, content. For this reason, auto-replies are usually not very effective.

When you get a few inquiries again and again, for example, headings to your office or how to subscribe to your newsletter, spare these writings as response templates and glue them into your message when you require them. You can save your templates in a Word document, or use pre-formatted emails.

Rule 14 – Use the proper structure & layout

To read from a screen is more difficult than reading from a piece of paper. So, the structure and layout are very important for email messages. Make your paragraphs short and use blank lines between each paragraph. When making points, number them or separate each point with blank lines to keep the overview.

Rule 15 – Do not overuse the High Priority function

We all know the story of the boy who cried wolf. If you overuse the high priority option, it will lose its function when you really need it.

In case the email has a high priority so your message will come across as slightly aggressive if flag it as ‘high priority’. Likewise, be careful using the words Urgent or Important in the subject line.

Rule 16 – Don’t write in CAPITALS

IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS, IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING!! This can be very irritating, hard to peruse, and may trigger an undesirable reaction as a flame mail (you get yelled back at!). Therefore, try not to send email text in capitals.

Rule 17 – Be always careful with formatting

Always remember that when you use the formatting in emails, the sender might not be able to view formatting, or might be chances to see different fonts than you had intended.

Rule 18 – Don’t request delivery & read receipts

This will quite often bother your recipient before he or she has even perused your message. In addition, it ordinarily does not work in any case since the recipient could have obstructed that capacity, or his/her product won’t support it, so what is the utilization of utilizing it?

If you want to know whether an email was received, it is better to ask the recipient to let you know that it was received.

Rule 19– Don’t recall a message

It may chances that your message has already been read. A recall request just looks silly. It is better to send an email saying you have made a mistake. This will look substantially more genuine than attempting to recall a message.

Rule 20 – Don’t copy a message/attachment without permission

Try not to copy a message or connection having a place with another client without the authorization of the originator; you may encroach on copyright laws.

Rule 21 – Avoid using long sentences

As said before, email is harder to peruse than printed material. Individuals don’t give the email a similar mental ability as they do when perusing, for instance, a letter.

Rule 22 – Keep your language gender-neutral

It is correct today to avoid sexist language such as: “The customer should bring his car to our service department for an oil change”. You can use “his/her” or keep it neutral by rephrasing the sentence: “The customer should bring the car to our service department for an oil change”.

Rule 23 – Do not reply to spam

Spam may make you furious and you may want to reply with “flame mail”. Many spam messages are sent to affirm that your email address is as yet substantial, and by answering you are just making yourself known to questionable advertisers which may bring about considerably more spam. Just delete the spam, or use anti-spam software.

Final Thoughts

Keeping such things in mind can actually make you stand as a professional one in the corporate world. So, before being and sounding professional in actual terms, do not forget to go through the above-listed points or rules!