Don’t be annoying, be careful of these emails faux-pas

Emails are the number one communication channel in the business environment, they are essential to most professionals. Having poor manners or failing to follow a certain email etiquette could reflect badly on you as a person and as a professional.

Even though emails are so important, their cheer daily number (121 per worker) makes it so that most people have a love-hate relationship with their inbox. Whether they are aiming for a zero inbox or just trying to keep up with it all, emails can be a source of stress and distraction for most workers. Think about your own relationship to your inbox, not always easy is it? I know I sighed a little (a lot) getting back to hundreds of emails after a week-end away.

Well then, it seems quite logical that people expect others, who live through the same challenges, to be mindful and aware of their own use of emails. The best emails are sparse, direct and thought through to avoid lengthy e-conversations. So are you always your best self by email or do you tend to make mistakes that may cost you professional relationships?

To be sure, take a look at the following emails faux-pas and how to avoid them.

Reply all

Starting off with the obvious, large scale emails sent to all your company or even just your whole department are often merely informative. However, if they do require feedback from each and every recipient make sure you are only hitting the Reply button, not Reply All. Not everyone needs to read what you have in mind, you can just answer the person who sent you the email, or maybe just cc your manager so they know you have done it.

Same goes for meetings with multiple attendees, only confirm your presence to the organiser the other attendees can check the calendar event to see if you are coming. No-one will be happy to find 20 “I’ll be there” or “Count me in” messages crowding their inbox.

If the thread is only sent out to key protagonists in the conversation and you do really need to let them all know about your answer then make sure you always keep the subject line as it is, so their inbox can filter your answer as part of the conversation. Also, make sure to read the whole thread and answer the very last email, you don’t need to give your feedback on a problem solved 3 emails ago.

Email Ping-pong

Speaking of ongoing conversations, try to avoid them as much as you can!
If an email exchange goes over five emails in the course of a couple days then something is probably wrong.

A typical source of email ping-pong is trying to set a date for a meeting. To avoid the endless back and forth I have a 4 emails top rule. If I am the organiser, the first is the meeting request, second is the yes or no answer on “should we meet” and the key third one, is to send out 3 time slots where I would be available. I try to space them out in the course of 2 weeks with maybe one morning, one afternoon and one lunch slot over different days. If the person I am trying to meet can’t make any of these times then I take the discussion out of my inbox. It’s easier and less time consuming, to go see the person or quickly ring them up to find a time that suits you both.

Endless exchanges tend to get over complicated, make you loose sight of the essential and just become a source of annoyance. Try to always be pragmatic, only answer when necessary and always keeping in mind you are trying to bring the conversation to a logical end point.

Lengthy emails

Another common inbox annoyance is the really lengthy email. You know this yourself, from the moment you have to scroll to see the end of an email it’s already too long and you want to close it down. No one has the time to read something that long and no one should really take the time to write something that long. Imagine your recipient is checking this on his phone, the mere length of it will make it impossible to read and understand. It will also make it that much more difficult to answer, having to scroll up and down trying to get back to you on all the different points.

Your emails must be easy to read and to the point, if you have numerous points to get across, consider scheduling a meeting or using bullet points in your emails, too many topics in an email that is all blocks of text will guarantee something ends up being overlooked.

Even for bullet point, don’t go over two lines per point and number them if you have more than three points. If even then your email involves some scrolling down, consider making a simpler email and attaching to it a structured doc, that would be easy to read and comment for your recipient.

Email timing

You may work overtime or be more productive in the middle of the night, but most people are aiming to find an email-life balance. So unless it is an emergency and not sending your email at 2 AM risks the overall success of a major project or might get you fired, just schedule it.

Don’t risk waking up your boss with the project plan that has to be in first thing in the morning, schedule it to be sent out at 7 AM.
Scheduling can also be incredibly useful if you are working with overseas clients, schedule your emails to be sent to them during their business hours, when they are more likely to open and answer them and less likely to be annoyed by them.

Getting the details wrong

The devil is in the details.
Well, maybe it’s not that intense for emails, but it does seem unprofessional to get the essential wrong. I have lost count of the numerous ways people have managed to butcher my first name, not to mention my last name. It’s annoying when someone is reaching out to you and they get it wrong but it’s just plainly insulting when you have already once answered them with your first name spelled out correctly and they just keep on getting wrong. Especially, when your name is in your email address.

This is just an example, but do make sure you double check on the basic information you might be using in your emails: the person’s name, their job title or position, the name of their company etc.

Not using the tools at your disposal

Some mistakes can also be avoided altogether, so make sure you check all the tools at your disposal and make use of them.
In Gmail for example, if you tend to hit send involuntarily, you can set up the Undo option , allowing you to cancel a sent email for up to 30 seconds after you clicked send.
You also have an integrated spellchecking feature in your compose window, it is not perfect but it could help avoid obvious typos.

Not following up on an email, forgetting to Bcc a colleague who works with you on a project, not keeping track of tasks mentioned in an email, all can be truly detrimental to your professionalism and all can find easy fixes. You can use follow up reminder, set up automatic Cc/Bcc rules and use a Gmail integrated to do list that turns emails into actions to take on etc.

It’s easy to make a mistake and seem unprofessional in an email, so just be aware of things that annoy you and try to use emails the way you would like others to use them. Plus, it never hurts to get a little help from the technology at your disposal to avoid common missteps.