Spam…email chain letters…obnoxious or off-color jokes…these are just a few things that annoy business professionals when it comes to daily email. While you’re likely not sending any of these things, what if your emails to people are just as annoying?
Unfortunately, many people are unknowingly irritating co-workers and clients with bad email etiquette and habits. Even worse, the offenders are tarnishing their reputations in the process, unaware that their emails reflect their personal and company brand, their image, and their credibility.
If you’ve ever wondered why people don’t take action on your emails or why this productivity tool seems to waste more of your time than it saves, you may be guilty of exhibiting a few email pet peeves GoDaddy email login. Following are the top five email pet peeves in the workplace. Avoid them so your email messages are most effective.
Sensitive and emotionally charged conversations have no place in an email. If you need to fire someone, express disappointment, or apologize, do it face-to-face (most preferred) or via phone. When a topic has emotion behind it, the recipient naturally escalates that emotion when reading the email. Why? Because it’s virtually impossible to display emotion in an email (aside from some carefully placed emoticons, which not everyone appreciates), and humans by nature look for the worst in a message rather than the best. So your innocent question of “Why did you call Mr. Smith?” gets read as an accusatory question, as if you had asked, “Why on earth did you of all people call Mr. Smith and bother him?”
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that many people write things in an email that they would never say in person. They view email as a way to have “safe” conflict without being face-to-face. So they may snap back at someone in a sarcastic way or slam someone professionally or personally. Some people even enjoy this type of conflict, as it gives them a charge. The bottom line is that if your message has any type of intense emotion behind it, don’t send the email. The matter is best addressed in a face-to-face meeting or phone call.
Just because you were one of many recipients on a message does not mean everyone needs to hear your reply. For example, a supervisor may send a group message out to the entire department asking who will be present at the quarterly meeting. The only person who needs to see your response is the person who initiated the message, not the entire group. If the group contains 100 people and each one does a “reply all” saying, “I’ll be there,” you’ll have a very cluttered inbox and 100 annoyed people.