People often tell me about email mis-communication. Earlier this week, a business I like and trust sent an email broadcast apologising for any offence that may have been caused by the email broadcast sent the day before. They have a novel means of maintaining a relationship with their database by forwarding little jokes. They are careful to avoid profanity. Sadly, this week’s email had included a negative reference to around 50% of the population. Personally, I view their strategy as risky – you may disagree – but it works for them. The important point is that they caused offence – by pressing that send button without taking the extra 5 seconds to check what they were sending.

Most businesses use email in their interactions with customers and / or suppliers. Some businesses rely very heavily on email. Because we send and receive so many emails, we take the communication medium for granted. We forget some of the cardinal rules of writing business letters – it is only an email, what could go wrong! This is when the problems start, a few lines composed in a hurry, sent to a person who skims the text and then acts or replies based on a partial understanding of our ambiguous and incomplete text.

Breaking this down: Think about the hurriedly written email. To keep this simple, let’s assume that we have written an unambiguous email. As usual, because we are in a hurry, we have included 70% of the information we would have given to the recipient over the telephone or face to face. We hit “Send”. Our customer reads the email in a hurry and gets 70% of the content we have written. Working this out, the person we have just written to has got 49% of the story – less than half.

(70% of the story) x (70% understood) = 49% of the story

If you are emailing a prospect, what just happened to your chances of winning the business?

Simple Tips

• Think about the recipient

• Why are you sending an email?

• What do you want them to understand from the text?

• Is it ambiguous?

• Do you really need to copy all these people?

• Could / should this be better done by telephone or face-to-face?

• When you re-read your email, does your message get through?

• If there is the slightest hint of emotion in your reasons for emailing, save the draft, drink a cup of tea/ coffee/ water, re-read the text and assure yourself that you really want to send the email before you press “Send”. If in doubt, wait until tomorrow or telephone.

• Avoid unnecessary graphics and attachments – especially if your recipient might not be connecting via broad-band.

• The High-Priority flag should be used sparingly.

• Reply to all – do you really need to do this?

• NEVER put all the addresses in the To: or CC: fields in a mass-mailing – use Mail-Merge or Bcc:

• Add a signature to emails (including contact details, regulatory information – see below and a disclaimer).

• Do not send confidential information by email.

  • The Internet is public

  • You have no control over the forwarding on by recipients

• Do not forward virus alerts and chain emails – just about all of them are spoofs

Remember: UK companies must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine. Every company should list its company registration number, place of registration and registered office address on its website. The information, which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order forms and in emails.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.

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