Business Gentleman
Business
Email
Etiquette
By James Marwood
Whether you believe it is the glorious
march of progress, or whether you are
mourning the loss of a dying art, gone are
the days of hand written communication,
and nowhere is that more apparent than in
business. The move from hand written,
posted letters to the almost instantaneous
flow of communication backwards and
forwards that the typed email allows, has
sped up the rate of business, and the
development of mobile phone technology
has allowed emails to be accessible at any
time in almost any location. This can mean
that there is no escape from work, and
finding the work-life balance can become
increasingly difficult.
It is important that when sending a
business email, you are not only
representing yourself, but also your
organisation. Many companies have
internet usage policies, as well as email
standards policies, and following these is
not only a job requirement, but also
reflects on your and your company's
professionalism.
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To this end, you should always use your
business email address, not one with a
questionable.
When writing a business email you should
always err on the side of the formal. Use
correct language with full sentences,
punctuation and spelling. Always address
the email formally, using the full name or
title (e.g. Dear Major Pierson M.D.), and
only scale back that formality using the
person's given name when invited to do so.
Formatting should remain plain. Emails
should be aligned left, thereby allowing the
content of the email to be automatically
re-formatted to the screen of the device
that is used to open the letter. You should
not use different colours, texts and emojis
in an email, unless you are doing it to a
specific purpose. Use a typeface that is
suitable to your organisation, and if they
have a specified font, make sure that you
set that up as your default font when
composing a new email.