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E for Efficiency (and Email Etiquette)

ByJudith Hours Posted on Reading Time: 3 minutes
Efficiency, Focus and Email Etiquette are Keys to Business Success

The fact is that integrating solid Email Etiquette skills in your business communication activities will help to make you a more Efficient communicator. Okay, I won’t bold any more “e”s.

Business contacts you email regularly will undoubtedly appreciate any effort you make to communicate with clarity primarily because you will help to make doing business with you easier. With the added benefit of assisting them to be more efficient as well!

Email and Efficiency

I thought about this recently as I was reviewing my overflowing inbox. I discovered several emails that required me to review previous emails before responding. Requests that had already been answered were re-asking because they didn’t want to look up previous emails. Also included were a few inquiries that were vague at best.

This caused me to dig out my previous replies and resend them to the same individuals. Not sure why they didn’t have their copies.

I also had to reply to some by asking questions for more information. Otherwise, I could not answer with confidence.

A couple of emails required me to weed through previous back-and-forth threads. I had difficulty figuring out what the Sender was referring to. No clarity to be found.

I thought about how these types of emails make me inefficient. What ran through my mind next? “This will make a great topic for Business Email Etiquette!”

Here are the issues that I took note of this morning. Issues that made both sides spend more time than necessary on their email communications. These can easily be resolved with just a little thought and effort.

Quick Email Organization Tips

  • Before responding to an email, order your emails by Sender. This will help you see any subsequent emails from that Sender. This allows you to combine into just one reply on the same topic. I hate when I forget to do this myself! I respond to one email only to discover subsequent emails from the same Sender. Emails that negated the email I just responded to. Drat! Minimizing the number of emails is a benefit to everyone involved.
  • Consolidate your thoughts and put them in one email using a bulleted list, as I am doing here. Sending numerous emails with just one thought, concern, or question takes unnecessary time for the Sender and the Recipient to weed through.
  • Down-editing your replies is the sign of a tech-savvy skilled communicator. You want to get in the habit of removing what is no longer necessary to the conversation. Only leave what you are specifically replying to so the Recipient knows what your comments correspond to.
  • Do a quick search in your email program for previous emails that may include the info you are seeking.
  • Before assuming that a request was not acknowledged or a response received, check your junk or spam folders. Add important contacts to your address book or whitelist to ensure your contact’s emails are not sent to Junk.
  • When making a request, be sure to do your best to include all the possible information you believe the other side will need to assist you. By providing all the necessary details and required information, you increase your chances of receiving the response you desire.

Quick Steps to Efficiency

These are just a few issues that stuck out and caused me to lose time and efficiency today. Business Email Etiquette serves to assist all involved to be more efficient.

And spend less time tapping away at these keyboards! That then frees us all up to have more time to do our jobs and run our businesses.

For more email organization tips, here’s a guide to having an easy email organization system.

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