{"id":107,"date":"2018-08-29T11:10:52","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T15:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/cmn279\/chapter\/6-1-1-email-address\/"},"modified":"2023-12-19T21:02:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T02:02:51","slug":"6-1-1-email-address","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/cmn279\/chapter\/6-1-1-email-address\/","title":{"raw":"6.1: Emailing","rendered":"6.1: Emailing"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n1. Identify characteristics of effective professional emails.\r\n\r\n2. Plan, write, revise, and edit short documents and messages that are organized, complete, and tailored to specific audiences.\r\n
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  1. Format and write documents and messages such as emails.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\nElectronic mail, widely known as \u201ce-mail\u201d or just \u201cemail,\u201d is by volume the most popular written communication channel in the history of human civilization. With emails being so cheap and easy to send on desktop and laptop computers, as well as on mobile phones and tablets, a staggering 280 billion<\/em> emails are sent globally per day<\/em> (Radicati, 2017)<\/a>\u2014that\u2019s over a hundred trillion per year. Most are for business purposes because email is such a flexible channel ideal for anything from short, routine information shares, requests, and responses the length of a text, to important formal messages delivering the content that letters and memos used to handle. Its ability to send a message to one person or as many people as you have addresses for, integrate with calendars for scheduling meetings and events, send document attachments, and send automatic replies makes it the most versatile communication channel in the workplace.\r\n\r\nThis mindboggling quantity of 3.2 million emails sent per second doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that quality is a non-issue for email, however. Because it has, to some extent, replaced mailed letters for formal correspondence, emails related to important occasions such as applying for and maintaining employment must be impeccably well written. Your email represents you in your physical absence, as well as the company you work for if that\u2019s the case, so it must be both\u00a0good<\/em>\u00a0(well-written) and appropriate.\r\n\r\nFirst, ensure that you really need an email to represent you because emailing merely to avoid speaking in person or calling by phone can do more harm than good (see \u00a72.3<\/a>, especially Table 2.3<\/a>, above on \u00a0channel selection). If an email is necessary, however, then it must be good<\/em>. As people who make decisions about your livelihood, the employers and clients you email can be highly judgmental about the quality of your writing. To them it's an indication of your professionalism, attention to detail, education, and even intelligence. The writing quality in a single important email can be the difference between getting hired and getting fired or remaining unemployed.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s say, for instance, that you get an email from a customer and they mention in it that they\u2019ve been shopping around for a company to do a custom job for them. This means they\u2019re emailing other companies with the same inquiry. Let\u2019s say also that your competitors offer similar services at similar prices and are similarly reviewed positively online. Tough choice for the customer. With everything else being equal, the quality of the email responses may be the deciding factor. Responding to the customer quickly gives you an advantage because you show them that you can get things done promptly. If your email is also well written in a professional style (see \u00a74.5.2<\/a> above for the 6 Cs) and error-free in every way due to effective editing and proofreading (see Ch. 5<\/a> above), you stand a much better chance of getting the job.\r\n\r\nComparing this with another company\u2019s email that came a few days later with multiple writing errors in it, the customer will likely go with the company that wrote the better email. Even though the quality of communication doesn\u2019t necessarily guarantee quality of work in the product or service a company provides, customers will assume a connection. Indeed, the quality of communication can certainly say volumes about work ethic and attention to detail.\r\n\r\nThe customer\u2019s basis for judgment here is that if a company\u2019s communications are good, it must be because they\u2019ve hired a customer service rep dedicated to responding to people. This means they have the money to do so, which means they\u2019re successful, which must be because they do a good job, which means they\u2019ll do a good job on what the customer wants them to do. We must all try to make a similarly strong impression in any situation where the quality of email matters. Let\u2019s turn our attention, then, to the ten aspects you must take care of when sending an important email in the order they appear in the email from top to bottom.\r\n

    <\/a>Email Parts<\/h2>\r\n