Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Email Etiquette on Business

How long have we been using email? it might be more than 10 years. Do you know that there are etiquette to send email? I know that A lot of it is well written. A lot of it isn't. Some messages go on and on and on, until finally the question is asked. Sometimes the length is necessary -- other times the writer could be more concise.
Just share my few of coins:

Do’s:
  • Before you send each e-mail, ask yourself if each recipient is necessary
  • Be considerate of the time of others by keeping e-mails short and business-relevant
  • Politely inform people when they have sent you something unnecessary or inappropriate
  • Use Auto-reply to inform others of your absences
  • Consider the language comprehension of recipients; use both languages if necessary
  • Use clear and rich subject lines
  • Use short sentences
  • Read your e-mail before you send it, taking a recipient’s perspective
  • Anticipate your readers’ questions and try to pre-empt them
  • Use the telephone or face-to-face rather than e-mail if at all practical
  • Use e-mail for sharing information

Don’ts:

  • Send any e-mail you would not be happy to show to your boss
  • Send e-mails when you are angry
  • Send an e-mail to me when you are simply copying (cc) me
  • Send gigantic attachments (over 2 megabytes should be posted on the website)
  • Forward messages with attachments while simultaneously adding more attachments
  • E-mail someone with criticism or arguments; If you have a problem, contact the person directly
  • Confuse reading your e-mail with getting your work done
  • Assume recipients will read your e-mail in the hour or two after you send it
  • Assume e-mail is the best method of communicating; it’s the easiest method to be misunderstood
  • Send an e-mail when you can phone or have a conversation directly with the person
  • Have conversations over e-mail when the person is in the next office or down the hall
  • Overuse the high priority option

Besides those things, there're additional that no less important than the general mentioned above.

Abbreviations
Abbreviation usage is quite rampant with e-mail. In the quest to save keystrokes, users have traded clarity for confusion (unless you understand the abbreviations). Some of the more common abbreviations are listed in the table below. I would recommend that you use abbreviations that are already common to the English language, such as 'FYI' and 'BTW'. Beyond that, you run the risk of confusing your recipient.

BCNU be seeing you
BTW by the way
FWIW for what it's worth
FYI for your information
IMHO in my humble opinion
OBO or best offer
ROTFL rolling on the floor laughing
RTFM read the funny manual
TNSTAAFL there's no such thing as a free lunch
TTFN ta ta for now
TTYL talk to you later
CMIIW Correct me if I am wrong

Smilies
Part of the nature of a good one-on-one conversation is the use of visual cues. How important are facial expressions and body gestures to a conversation? A simple eye movement can mean the difference between "yes" and "YES". What about auditory cues? The results are the same.
Since there are no visual or auditory cues with e-mail, users have come up with something called "smilies". They are simple strings of characters that are interspersed in the e-mail text to convey the writer's emotions (cues). The most common example is :-). Turn your head to the left and you should see a happy face (the colon are the eyes, the dash is the nose and the parentheses is the mouth). Here are some more examples.

:-) Smiley face
;-) Wink (light sarcasm)
:- Indifference
:-> Devilish grin (heavy sarcasm)
8-) Eye-glasses
:-D Shock or surprise
:-/ Perplexed
:-( Frown (anger or displeasure)
:-P Wry smile
;-} Leer
:-Q Smoker
:-e Disappointment
:-@ Scream
:-O Yell
:-* Drunk
:-{} Wears lipstick
^_^ Twink-twink
However most common practise also used in SMS mobile phone.
Then, it'll be up to you anyway.

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