Email...

[semperfiona]

Yet another exciting three hours of Customer Service Training this afternoon. Today's episode: Email and Forums.

I am at odds with one of the big things they kept reiterating, and I'm curious about the views of my Loyal Readership.

Copied from the manual:

Email Rule: Creating an email is much like writing a letter. You need: An opening The body of the email A polite close

It has always been my belief that email requires neither a salutation nor a closing because the names of the addressee and sender are right there in the header; I liken email to verbal conversation. To some degree I do use greetings, especially when the email is a new start to a conversation or I haven't communicated with the recipient in a long time, but only on the first one in a thread, very-rarely-to-never on a reply, and I don't generally sign them unless to add other contact information.

Am I obliviously rude in this regard, or are they being backward and old-fashioned?

Comments

email

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

it depends. for casual email i still use a greeting, but drop the polite close (if sending flurries of email back and forth i dont use a greeting either, and don't even sign them).

for business email i use both, and basically treat the email as if it were a letter. mainly i do so because many (more traditional) people grant an email somewhat less weight than a paper letter, and i want to counteract that.