5 Business Email Essentials

Email communication has largely replaced paper communication in most organisations making email etiquette as important as proper business mail etiquette. Proper business email etiquette helps you make a favorable impression on clients, colleagues and managers. With the appropriate formatting and language, you can establish a professional reputation and clearly communicate your message.?

Most business managers chasing the same elusive dream: an email inbox that is tidy, up-to-date, and empty. But let’s face it,?inbox zero ?is difficult — and at times even impossible — to achieve. No matter how many subfolders we create or newsletters to which we?unsubscribe , the emails arrive, and the undertow pulls us beneath the current.

What are business email essentials?

Business email essentials are the customary set of manners used in professional email communications. Appropriate email etiquette involves including the necessary elements of a message, such as a clear subject line, greeting, well-organized body paragraphs, proper language and closing.?

In this article, we shall discuss what business email essentials are together with tips. These guidelines can help you draft a polite and professional email for work.

1. Call to action in the subject line

Since most business executives receive all kinds of emails and there are chances that they miss out your email if the subject isn’t catchy. Start your email with a clear call to action in the subject line that tells your recipient what you want them to do next. You might ask for an in-person meeting, an RSVP, a file delivery or a general response. Provide a time frame for this communication, such as the end of the day or the end of the week. This call to action lets your recipient know what they need to do and how long they have to comply.

2. Address your recipient formally

It recently happened with me where I wasn’t sure about the recipient’s gender. In such a case, just write Dear and the first name but when you know about the recipient very well, then address the recipient as?“Mr.,”?“Ms.”?or?“Mrs.”?unless you know them very well. You may address people on a first name basis if you are often in cordial contact. Use a professional salutation, such as?“Hello Mr. Ali”?or?“Dear Ms. Rabia”?to begin your email politely and professionally.

3. Use CC cautiously?

Most employees use Carbon Copy (CC) just to show off their efficiency to their seniors that they have done their job. Please stop overburdening your colleagues and managers as they have better things to do at the workplace.??Use CC where it is simply unavoidable.?

4. The BCC Syndrome

To me personally, using Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) is unethical. However, to understand how to use BCC, it’s important to first understand how?not?to use it. Due to its functionality - all recipients on the BCC line are blind to or invisible to everyone else on the email - BCC has a?mixed reputation . It’s often seen as a way to facilitate secret correspondence or allow someone to furtively monitor a line of communication. We do?not?recommend this practice; we consider this etiquette unprofessional, disrespectful, unfair, and it can quickly undermine trust on a team.

5. Activate Follow up Flags

In order for you to follow up with your team and ensure timely response, activate follow up flags and turn on date and time options where your email recipients will receive automatic reminders for their tasks. You may also turn on “Delivered and Read” options. This way you can track who has trashed your email without reading and take them to to task if needed.?:)

Last Word?

Leveraging these powerful concepts, along with practicing the basics of email essentials will help you protect your colleagues’ inboxes and foster a professional communication culture. As you undergo this change, start an ongoing discussion with your team to determine and agree upon best email practices, identify areas of improvement, and form realistic expectations as a team.

By considering the email inbox of your working group, everyone will check email less. We recognise that this shift may require a rewiring of your usual habits, which could be difficult. Mistakes and exceptions will be made. But if the collective community starts to respect others’ workload and schedule, there will be less email all around. In this model, everyone wins.

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Muhammad Sajwani ?is the Founder, Managing Director and Principal Consultant at?Evolve HR ?which aims at transforming,?enriching and evolving Human Capital of Pakistan. At Evolve HR, him and his team thrives in challenging assumptions that hinder organisational aspirations, by creating innovative solutions that yield maximum impact, scalability & benefit to a wider base of stakeholders.As a Business Coach and Organisational Consultant, Sajwani knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.