Although there is lot of social development going on, the need and importance of e-mails is still ranging high. e-mail still is the most effective ways of communication in the Software Industry. In some cases it creates a bridge between OnSite and OffShore development process.
Even in this highly paced social networking arena most of the people spend most of their time to read each and every mail rather than their personal messages or tweets they receive. That sort of importance is given to e-mails. It is associated with each and every sector now. Name a sector where there is no need in e-mails? The answer would be NONE.
10 Important Points which are to be considered !
I want to discuss top 10 points which are to be considered while attempting/Using e-mails.
1) Having Meaningful Subject Line:
It is very important to have a meaningful subject line before we even actually start writing the content in it. Generally it is termed as "First impression is the best impression" in any given topic. So if we consider an e-mail, the main focus will be laid on subject line. So make sure to apply very meaning full subject line which is relevant to the topic rather than making it more confusing.
We need to use the subject to grab the recipient's attention. By choosing the appropriate subject line it gives the sense of urgency and importance where as choosing a wrong subject line won't give that interest.
It cannot be long as a paragraph. It should be short crisp and to the point kind. In general, it will have a maximum impact to your mail if your subject line is less than 50 characters.
2) Dealing with Attachments:
So often that we miss attachments. Even highly experienced folks will be doing this. How funny it would be if we write a mail where the complete content is written in the attachment and if we miss attaching it.
This would be fine if we are sending the same to a friend in a casual way but we need to be very careful while we are sending a business mail for higher authorities.
Thanks to the latest e-mail clients like Mozilla Thunderbird etc where they are alerting the user that there is a key word "Attachment" in the mail have you added it?? This way we can double check that if an attachment is missing.
3) Usage of Capital Letters:
Capital letters are always very annoying to read. Make sure we use it sparingly, when required. Some times there will be scenarios where we need to stress some words in our e-mail. In that case we can apply capital letters.
4) Over-usage of High Priority option (!):
This is one of the powerful tool to indicate the recipient that, the mail is extremely important which is to be considered. Hence this has to be very wisely used. If we overuse this option then it will loose the actual importance and also some times it creates an impact that you are slightly aggressive in nature when you flag it as "High Priority" all the time.
5) Disclaimer Information:
As an individual if you are sending a personal mail then this is not that important but when we are taking about business mails then definitely this will be rated as a one of top most priorities which are to be considered.
Here we will be representing the image of the company/firm we are working. So we need to mention this disclaimer to avoid any legal issues.
I will discuss a scenario where this will be helpful. Suppose if an employee unknowingly sends Virus to the recipient and because of this if the recipient claim damage from the company at that point of time if the employee has this disclaimer at the bottom of the e-mail stating "Please check the data before you download. we are not liable to any virus prone attacks". This single line will be helpful in the court if the recipient takes this legally.
6) Abbreviations and Emoticons:
With the regular use of this Abbreviations and Emoticons we tend to use them even in our business e-mails. We generally use LOL (Laugh Out Loud), U (YOU), BTW (By the Way). It creates a negative impact on the minds of higher authorities and treat us lazy.
Also the smileys needs to be reduced in terms of business mails. If you are not so sure that your recipient know what it exactly meant, better not to use it.
7) Do not use Obscene and Offensive remarks:
As this is corporate world you need to maintain your senses all the time. Complete world will be watching us.
Even though you have some problem with some one, you should not use e-mail as the medium to send any obscene or offensive remarks against any one. Also we should not poke others in any way by sending offensive e-mails or pictures.
e-mail will act as a proof to make fall under the law. So we need to be very careful in this regard.
8) Dealing with Spam mails:
We need to be more cautious in dealing with Spam mails. If you accidentally reply to a spam mail it will create more spam into your accounts. Also if there is some one included in the list even they will be the victims for this cause. So please be rest assured in terms of handling Spam mails.
Also in the recent times we are prone to receive mails stating that you have won "1Billion $ kindly respond with your bank account number". Do not even respond to these kind of mails. They poke us showing unbelievable offers and try to hack our bank account related data.
9) Proper Use of Grammar and Avoiding Spelling mistakes:
Although we make sure that there are no spelling mistakes in our mail there will be some of them which we are not intended to do. Thanks for all the spell check tools which are on offer. Better use them rather than leaving it and recalling a mail again.
Since e-mail is more a written skill, grammar we use will have a maximum emphasis. So better we need use it carefully. Not that every one will be perfect but we need to show some sort of improvement in terms of Grammatical skills which we use in our e-mails and which will ultimately make the individual grow not only personally but also professionally.
10) Reply to All:
This is one of the most wonderful option where it is frequently being misused. Before even clicking on this we need to decide the recipients to which we want to convey the message. This will create a lot of confusion and irrelevant data to a particular user.
Also in the corporate world for each individual id there will be a specific bandwidth allocated. So if we are using this "Reply to All" that will create memory space related issues to all the users who are not actually required.
Conclusion
So finally I want to conclude this by saying e-mail is the most effective way of communication. Better we need to use it in a meaningful way. Thanks for reading this.....