Tel: UK 0845 757 3888 | Ireland: 01 284 6796
Email Etiquette
Liz Perrett
Liz joined QA in 2005 with over 30 years in business in a variety of roles, predominantly in sales and customer service, up to Director level. Having been involved in almost every aspect of business over a long and successful career, Liz is able to bring a wealth of commercial knowledge and practical expertise to her post as a Learning Solutions Manager within QA. Liz works with our account management team and our customers to scope learning solutions which exactly fit our customers’ requirements, creating a high-level design before introducing the customer to our team of consultants.
Previous posts
- Posted by Liz Perrett
- on 16 January 2012
I am of an age where Blogs/Twitter/Texting etc are not my milieu! However just to prove to myself that you can teach an old dog new tricks (otherwise why would learning be my passion?!), I have decided to write my first blog.
My chosen topic is best practice when using email. Not wishing to bang on about my age however I am now counting down my time in years rather than decades and any precious moments I can save are becoming more and more significant! So everyone can help me (and in turn my business) by considering using some of these top tips:
- If you want me to do something as a result of an email, please put me in the 'To' line rather than the 'cc' line.
- Please don't bury my action in loads of text that I don't need to read. Please use some way of drawing my attention to the action.
- Use a Subject Line that gives me a fighting chance of knowing what the email is about and that will help me find it again when I need it. Please don't just put 'Help' or 'Another thing'.
- If you change your topic during an email trail, please either start a new email or at least change the Subject Line.
- If you want to tell me something complicated, please call.
- Think carefully about how many recipients you include - emails can become 'viral' and fill up email boxes. My colleague, Amanda, and I suggested the use of a new icon to represent the practice of excessive use of 'Reply to all' and 'ccing' everyman and his dog in on emails. We wanted to include all genders so added 'the world and his wife'.
Email is wonderful, I don't long for the days of the telex machine I promise, but it can also sap my will to live sometimes. Let's all make it work for us rather than drive us all mad!
