You can disagree with this stuff but this is how I (try to) roll:
- Don’t put multiple people in the TO field.
- If you absolutely must put multiple people in the TO field (so everyone knows what you told each person), then address each person specifically in bold and repeat any relevant details to them in what you say ‘to them’ in the email.
- Don’t use BCC that’s like talking behind someone’s back.
- If it accidentally gets a reply all you’ll look stupid.
- If their boss needs to know then openly cc their boss.
- Use bcc only if everyone in the email is BCC such as to keep everyone's email addresses private when others don't know the address.
- such as some sort of external mailing like a joke to your internal and external friends (keeping everyones address private)
- To share training opportunities so it's not like you're saying "Hey this person doesn't know this shit, laugh at them"
- Don’t put multiple objectives in a single email.
- People will read until they see a ‘relevant detail’ then stop reading.
- If you have to do it, use bullet points so they realize there are multiple things to consider.
- Don’t use bold or say ‘note’ people ignore that because they think it’s just more stuff relevant to what you just said. Usually people emphasis ‘additional details’ so if they already ‘get the gist’ they won’t read it.
- Don’t have email signatures. Sorry they’re just annoying.
- Don’t use a past email as a whip when people didn’t do what you expected them to. “WHAT? It was in the email I sent you last week! You remember: The one that had 15 things in it that weren’t bullet pointed and 12 of them were irrelevant to you.”
- This goes for wiki pages and other documentation as well.
- If you didn’t get an answer in the affirmative assume I didn’t follow the email. Emails are assumed lost unless confirmed.
- Emails are assumed lost unless confirmed.
- Yes it is worth saying twice J
- A read receipt doesn’t mean someone read it.
- A lack of read receipt doesn’t mean they didn’t read it
- It might mean that person boycotts read receipts (like I do because it’s an intrusion and a false expectation that you actually communicated your email properly to me and that I understood any of it)
- Firing off a round of emails doesn’t mean you’re off the hook from then on.
- Following up on an email is YOUR responsibility. Not the recipient.
- Set a reminder for X days out on your email to follow up and see if they got it and understood it.
- Ask for feedback on the email if they didn’t understand
- You might suck at communicating with this person so you need to get feedback and tailor your style.
- Don’t save up a bunch of stuff to email at the end of the day in one big email.
- No one wants 1 big email at 4pm they’ll ignore it.
- If there is 1 single thing on that list that they can’t answer or do, they will not get back to you FOR ANY OF IT.
- If people are annoyed with lots of tiny emails, it’s not because your emails are too frequent it’s because whatever you’re sending them is useless to them. Figure out which ones are useless.
- Don’t reply all to your own email shortly after your first one
- Don’t recall emails. Just reply all and correct yourself. Unless it was an unintentional very large reply all or large distro then just leave it alone and suffer your fate J
- If there is a meeting where you will see the person… just wait. Save them the email.
- If someone doesn’t understand your email and replies with a question. Call them or see them in person. Don’t reply to the question. If they already don’t understand you then they probably will get confused with your clarification. Just call them, straighten it out, figure out how to communicate better with them.
- Use a good subject
- makes sense in searches
- short
- is not ambiguous
- does not ask a question (let the body do the talking or people will skip the content)