semperfiona | Email...

You're viewing

semperfiona's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

leenoox.livejournal.com

I'm just going to pronounce, ex-cathedra.

I got my first email account in 1983; you decide what you think of my opinions. :-)

I tend to take the same approach you do, taking into account the context in which I think the recipient will receive my mail.

How often you originate threads of conversation with the person is one issue, how well you know them another -- those with whom you work directly and your friends you can be informal with; people at your own company with whom you don't work directly you should be a little bit more formal with, and if you're writing to someone who's never heard from you before, all the fancies of a "real" letter are called for *on the first message*... you can back off to suit in extensions of a thread, whether anyone's mail client actually threads or not.

Your mail program should be applying your 'signature' (actually an address block) for you, and it should automatically precede it with SIGDASHES (hyphen, hyphen, space, newline) so other people's mailers have a hope of knowing where it starts.

As for a complimentary close, again; depends on the context, but blindly applying the "always do everything in every message" rule clearly was a policy written by someone who reads his email on paper printed out by his secretary, and can't type.

Do what you do, and if they make noises about even writing you up for it, start shopping.