According to The Radicati Group – 175 billion email messages will be sent on average every day. This number is predicted to rise to 260 billion daily messages by 2015, with the typical business email user to send and receive 125 emails each day. If this world was perfect then each and every email would be sent to the right person, have no spelling mistakes and contain perfect netiquette. Unfortunately the world, and us human beings, are not perfect. In fact, we are often far from perfect. In being so, a percentage of those 260 billion daily messages will be flawed and a percentage of those flawed will be seriously flawed.
Do NOT try these at work:1) Responding to an email before reviewing all new messages – Especially in a group email situation, this can lead to a “Woohoo I have a Facebook Profile, when everybody else has already converted to Google+” situation – Check those new messages in case somebody has already beaten you to the post.
2) Forwarding useless emails -You’ve heard of spam right? Well, something that you find extremely hilarious may not be quite so funny to the next person, there’s no need to spam our already full inboxes with chain letters.
3) Sending an email before you mean to – This can result in the wrong person receiving your email, or the right person receiving a half-written note… Not a good look! The best way to avoid this situation is to only enter the recipients details once you’ve finished writing your email.
4) Including your email signature on every email – Your co-workers know who you work for. You’re customers know what you sell. There is no need to repeat your email signature in every situation. Here I’ll mention our product, Crossware Mail Signature, for Lotus Notes – With this you can centrally manage every signature in your company, you can even set conditions such as a promotional banner being sent only on first contact, and creating completely separate signatures for your internal and external messages.
5) Replying to all unintentionally – It can be a seriously problem when you send a personal reply to a lot of people, something that leads to many people losing their job. Only ever use this button when you are certain that is what you want to do. In any case, you should double-check your To:, CC: and BCC: fields before clicking “Send”!
6) Forgetting the attachment – So simple, so obvious, yet oh so very common. You write up your message, enter the recipient details, click send, then think “Oops, that attachment I was talking about throughout the email, yeah it’s not attached to the email” – Not very professional and it can be embarassing to send a follow up message with the appropriate attachement! One way to conquer this problem is to attach the file before writing the message.
7) Sending the wrong attachment – This could lead to a very sticky situation, with cases such as admin sending out employee bank details to everybody in the office. Double-checking the file preview before sending can definitely save your behind.
8 ) Sending the email to the wrong person – I don’t think we need to explain this one… You can read about the horrors of this case all over the Internet. Please, please, check the recipients field!!!
9) Omitting a recipient when replying to all – Being left out of an important conversation and needing to chase it up yourself, sucks. So don’t be the one the cause that problem!
10) Using BCC too often – One again this topic pops up. Using BCC can be like talking behind someone’s back. Be careful when, and for what reasons, you use this mysterious field. For more info have a look here – To BCC: or Not to BCC: … That is the Question!
11) Failing to include a basic greeting – You don’t go around randomly starting conversations with people every day. A simple “Hi” is enough to break the ice and instill a bit of courtesy.
13) Not signing off – It’s amazing to see cases where people do not sign off with their name, let alone without their logo, company and contact details!! As the creators of Crossware Mail Signature, this kind of mistake would be almost inconceivable – If we had not seen it happen many times for ourselves!
14) Emailing when you’re angry – There’s no need to have a tantrum like a toddler. Have some time out and respond later, especially in business situations.
15) Forgetting about tone – They say that first person communication is 93% non-verbal. When an email is 100% text it can be easy to forget about the tone of your text, even more importantly is how the text will be perceived by the receiver. Read through the message before sending, just in case something could be taken the wrong way.
16) Using an incorrent subject line – You open emails because you want to read about the subject line topic, so make sure your topic and content match somehow!
17) Having bad manners – Manners include the traditional “Mind your P’s and Q’s”, yet today they include so much more. Take a look at our posts on Netiquette to learn about why you SHOULDN’T TYPE WITH CAPS LOCK ON?!?!?! I sound angry there don’t I? ;-)
Age-old sayings can apply to a lot of situations – “Think before you speak” … “Look before you leap” … and “Re-read your email before sending” all definitely apply here. Beware of those common email mistakes!
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