12 Advanced Tips to take your Emailing Skills to the Next Level

Pre­vi­ously, we listed sim­ple tips to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tively with emails.  They are the basics of effec­tive email­ing that starts from Me.  Get­ting things right at the per­sonal level that gen­er­ally applies to any recip­i­ent.  Now you want to be extra sen­si­tive to the eti­quettes of email­ing.  You want to be cor­rect with the things sent to your recip­i­ents.  You want to fur­ther improve the effec­tives of your emails.  We’ve got you another list of effec­tive email tips that will take you to the next level.  The tips are not as straight-forward as before but they are still achiev­able.  It just needs time to habit­u­ate and you will even­tu­ally inter­nal­ize into your men­tal pro­cess­ing when you write emails.

1. Watch your fil­tered email fold­ers – Most of us would have fil­ter rel­e­vant emails into the respec­tive fold­ers.  It’s def­i­nitely good prac­tice.  How­ever, some­times, we over­see what was fil­tered and in the end, over­see the email.  There­fore, always check all your fil­tered email folders.
2. Refrain from using you in the email – You and I can means you are draw­ing a line between you and the recip­i­ent.  Look at the con­text of the emails.   Is there any­way not to use you?  If appro­pri­ate, use we instead to pro­mote a sense of team­work, giv­ing the recip­i­ent that you and him are a team in get­ting the work done.
3. Use smi­ley appro­pri­ately – Look at the con­text again.  Can a smi­ley be used?  Smi­ley gives a feel­ing of you smil­ing and being approach­able.  It gives per­sonal feel to the recip­i­ent.  Also, if the email is neg­a­tive, smi­ley can help neu­tral­ize or reduce the neg­a­tive con­text.  How­ever, do not use smi­ley in an offi­cial emails.  It’s not appro­pri­ate at all!
4. Avoid writ­ing the process of work – Peo­ple want results not the process.  There’s no point in writ­ing in details of what you have done, the impact of your work or your feel­ings of the work.  How­ever, it’s not that it can­not be included.  Leave it as an annex or attach­ment, or place the details at the bot­tom of the email.  If your recip­i­ent is inter­ested for more infor­ma­tion, he will be able to read from it.  Else it’s def­i­nitely fine with the sum­mary of your email.
5. Send a writ­ten under­stand­ing after a con­ver­sa­tion – Be it a tele­phone call or a face-to-face ver­bal chan­nel, it is always wise to write in email to sum­ma­rize the con­ver­sa­tion.  Ver­bal chan­nel con­ver­sa­tion can be mis­un­der­stood, mis­in­ter­preted or even being repu­di­ated (mean­ing he may say he would deliver work but doesn’t own up say­ing it and you have no way of proof­ing it).
6. Clar­ify in the writ­ten under­stand­ing – Another advan­tage of the writ­ten under­stand­ing is that you can clar­ify any points that you’ve noted and cap­ture any­thing miss­ing in it.  For writ­ten under­stand­ing, peo­ple may view you as being overly cau­tious.  There­fore, you have to craft the email in a way that is ami­able.  Exam­ple, write in a way that you are seek­ing to align com­mon under­stand­ing and find out any miss­ing gaps.
7. Be flex­i­ble with options in email con­clu­sions – If there is a need for the recip­i­ent to make a deci­sion, its advis­able to give alter­na­tives and pro­vide room for clar­i­fi­ca­tion.  Keep the con­clu­sion open UNLESS you want to point them to a cer­tain direc­tion.  Remem­ber the golden rule; humans do not like to be forced to make a decision.
8. Follow-up on your emails sent promptly – There are mul­ti­ple facades to be truly effec­tive in email­ing.  One of them is follow-ups.  Usu­ally, there are peo­ple do not respond promptly to your email.  You have to “harass” them con­sis­tently.  Set a date for the next fol­low up.  Let them know the con­se­quences of not respond­ing the email.
9. Be pro­fes­sional.  Do not inject emo­tions in your email (again) – We’ve men­tioned about it pre­vi­ously.  You never know who will be read­ing the email in future.  When you inject emo­tions into the email, they can be used against you if an audit arises on your work atti­tudes and if there are doubts on how you treat your col­leagues.  We’ve seen coun­sel­lors used emails as evi­dences to deter­mine if a per­son is bul­ly­ing their col­leagues men­tally in the work­place.  The per­son was asked to be “nice” in office or she will be asked to leave.  But she never improved much and even­tu­ally she left on her own accord.
10. Do not use work email for per­sonal email – Again, you never know who will be read­ing your emails.  Your mail admin­is­tra­tor may have access to all emails and you do not like your lit­tle secrets with your boyfriends to be known.
11. Archive your emails – You will need it when you want to trace back the con­ver­sa­tion his­tory or find out what was pre­vi­ously agreed.  Also it can be use for audit purposes.
12. If unsure, just call – Finally, if you are unsure of what the hell your recip­i­ent is writ­ing in return, just give him a call to clar­ify.  There’s no point bounc­ing back and forth in the email.  It’s more effec­tive this way and short­ens the time for clarification.

Do you have other effec­tive email com­mu­ni­ca­tion tips?

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