I can be accused of being too obsessed with detail, but usually it’s the small stuff that separates us from the great unwashed. Like the length of your necktie (it should just touch your belt buckle) and how you tip the chef at a teppanyaki restaurant (fold and palm the currency and pass it to him as you shake hands).
This time I’m obsessed with e-mails; in particular, the length of e-mails, the lapse in formality and the use of elaborate signature lines.
For most of us, the most frequent “touches” occur via e-mail messages, as we interact with sales, accounting, customer and technical support and operations. These touches create brand impressions, as the contents represent the acumen of your workforce, your understanding of the customer’s question or problem and your ability to engender a positive customer experience.
E-mail should be viewed the same way as Time Magazine’s letters to the editor from the nineteen eighties. Back then, letters to the editor were two, maybe three sentences long and delivered the message succinctly and with a dash of élan. In the same way, e-mails should communicate the message quickly while making it clear what action is required on the part of the recipient.
Too often, instructions and important content are buried in long e-mails and ignored or overlooked by the reader. Why? Because we all suffer from the same poverty of time. People do not read lengthy e-mails. And they shun e-mails from senders who tend to write lengthy prose.
Keep your message brief and lead with the action you’d like the recipient to take (e.g. “This message recaps our discussion from earlier today and contains three action items for you, highlighted below”).
With respect to message formality: I have some clients who use salutation lines (e.g. Dear Dave), and I respond in kind. Generally, though, for the sake of brevity and readability (most of my e-mails are probably read on Blackberry and iPhone devices), I disdain the salutation and get to the heart of the matter.
I do not use texting short-hand in e-mails, because I believe e-mails are the equivalent of business casual dress. You’re not wearing a three-piece suit, but at the same time you’re not wearing flip-flops and cargo shorts. “UR” is expressed as “you are”, and you’ll never see “LMFAO” in an e-mail from me. This is still business communication.
Finally, we have the e-mail signature line; what has become an altar of sorts for the sender. E-mail signature lines can include a name (occasionally formatted in a script font), title, company name, five or six phone numbers, a URL, and an e-mail address (this one kills me because the sender’s e-mail address is in the header). They can also be festooned with logos, like the company mark (usually oversixed) logo and Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn icons. To top it off there may also be a six-line disclaimer that basically says, “If you get this e-mail by mistake, delete it and forget you ever saw it, lest we beat you with the knotty end of a piece of long pine.”
I love getting an e-mail message with the response “OK”, and six inches (or 600 pixels) of signature.
Come on, people. Do we need all of that content embedded multiple times in an e-mail chain? It can be irritating as hell to scroll down using an iPhone to get the gist of an e-mail exchange.
Here’s my signature line. Suits me just fine.
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