Email Etiquette for Business

To do business fast, contact-free, and globally, we use emails every day. Do you know how your business is being represented by the emails you send? Are your emails professional and courteous? Will this help you get business? Here are some tips on business emailing to keep you and your business looking like email stars.

To start, here's a short video about how to keep your emails looking professional.

1. Respond To Every Email

Your first interaction with a potential client is the email they sent you, looking for more information on your services. Not responding to customer emails is the quick route to losing customers. You might be too busy to help them right now, but you might want their business at some point in the future, and making a good impression on potential customers is always a good idea.

Don’t forget about word-of-mouth, either. You don’t want to be known as a business that doesn’t respond to customers! Even a very short answer is better than dead silence, leaving the email sender wondering what is happening.

2. Subject Lines Are Critical

Most of us search for emails in our inboxes by the subject line (for current ones as well as saved ones). A short but descriptive subject line is a life-saver for trying to find an email again in the future. It also helps your recipients with their workload—ah, here is that email regarding a payment I was waiting for!

3. Emails Aren’t Private

Purdue University notes,

Most people do not realize that email is not as private as it may seem. Without additional setup, email is not encrypted; meaning that your email is "open" and could possibly be read by an unintended person as it is transmitted to your reader. With that in mind, never send the following information over email:

• Usernames and passwords

• Credit card or other account information

Additionally, avoid sensitive or information that could be potentially damaging to someone's career and/or reputation, including your own. Beyond email's general lack of security and confidentiality, your recipient can always accidentally hit the Forward button, leave their email account open on a computer, or print and forget that they've printed a copy of your email.

4. Be Very, Very Careful With “Reply All”

Is this really an email that needs to go to all the people on the email list? Or is it an email that needs to be sent to only one or two people? All the other busy people in your life will thank you for excluding them from emails they don’t need to see.

5. Proofread And Check Your Attachments

I think every one of us has forgotten to include the attachment that was the whole point of the email at some point. Before you hit “send,” check your email for tone (words without faces can easily be misunderstood), for spelling, and for completeness.

Be careful sending attachments to people you are contacting for the first time, too—they might assume you are sending a virus. Also, add your address last to prevent unfortunate accidents. And finally, make sure it's the right attachment—you don't want to send your company's financial statements to a competitor when you meant to send them to your accountant!

6. Keep It Professional

From your email address to your opening greeting to your sign-off, it should all be professional. Everything in your email is representing your business, and it all creates an impression on everyone who gets an email from you. Humour in business emails is tricky, and should probably be avoided to reduce misunderstandings.

Contact Shaw & Associates Chartered Accountants for accounting help you can count on. One complimentary meeting with us will put you and your business on a more profitable and positive path.