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

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

For business, or anything remotely like business, I always use a greeting and a closing and sign it with at least my initials. A huge reason I use a greeting is because the tone of the email can be construed as being terse/rude sans greeting. Now, if it is email being used like IM (where do you want to do to lunch? I don't know, you? How about the sandwich shop down the street? OK.) then I can skip the greeting and closing. However, for anything else, yes I firmly believe it needs a greeting and a closing. This becomes very important when email is forwarded around and when addressed to multiple people. I always include the names of the people I *need* to read the email in the greeting to be sure they know it is not a random CC and make sure to call out action items with the name of the person they concern. Also, I really hate it when people just use my name and no "Hi" or "hello" or "Hey". It sounds angry and rude to me, even if that is not the intent.