Beware of Over Dependence on Email
By Dan Bobinski
Email is a wonderful thing. The “send” button is a
magic link to instant communication worldwide. But beware of
over-reliance on this wondrous medium. Assuming that every
server works flawlessly and spam filters sift out only true spam is
dangerous thinking in the world of business communication. If
you’ve not heard back from a client or vendor, it may not be
their fault.
Before Email and Fax, “snail mail” was our only
option. The postal service grew trustworthy, but the occasional
letter still got “lost in the mail.” Then the
creation of certified and registered mail helped, as they required
signatures along the way.
But now, as Email has supplanted snail mail for many business
communications, a danger has been created. Confirmed receipts are
not well-designed nor well-used, plus messages regularly get lost
or delayed in cyberspace.
For example, Roger, a friend of mine, is buying a house. His
mortgage broker sent him some time-sensitive material in an
attachment, expecting Roger to respond later that day. The
broker neither called nor otherwise notified Roger that the Email
had been sent. As fate would have it, the Email was
“delayed” in cyberspace, and it didn’t appear in
Roger’s inbox for three days.
Where it got hung up nobody knows, but in the mean time, the
broker was miffed at Roger’s “alleged” disrespect
for the urgency of the matter.
Roger’s broker committed an all-too-common sin: Assuming
an Email has reached its destination.
Another example is Bill, a roofing contractor who gets
hundreds of spam Emails each day. Because he knows he gets a lot of
spam, Bill doesn’t read each message. If the
“from” line indicates the message is from someone he
doesn’t know or the subject line is generic, the message gets
deleted.
So here’s the miscue: One of Bill’s vendors had
his secretary send Bill an Email. Not only did the secretary choose
a generic subject line, Bill did not recognize the sender (it
showed only her name, not the company name, and Bill did not know
who she was). With a generic subject line and an unknown
sender, he viewed it as spam and deleted it.
A few days later, Bill called his vendor and wanted to know
the status of an order. As you might assume, the vendor was
befuddled that Bill had not responded to the previous Email, and
tension resulted.
These are just a few examples showing that good Email
etiquette is still not as pervasive as it ought to be.
Companies need to set standards for electronic communications.
Easier should not mean sloppier.
Emailreplies.com lists 32 tips for improving Email. One
that applies to Bill’s situation above is #24; Use a
Meaningful Subject. They write: 
Try to use a subject that is meaningful to the recipient as
well as yourself. For instance, when you send an email to a company
requesting information about a product, it is better to mention the
actual name of the product, e.g. 'Product A information' than to
just say 'product information' or the company's name in the
subject.
Can you imagine a world in which people use Email as a useful
tool, and not rely on it as their only means of
communication? Telephone companies are still in business, and
if I were a betting man I’d put money on the idea that
sometimes your client needs to hear your voice over the
phone.
Besides, with words being only 7% of communication (voice tone
and body language comprise the rest), it’s a darn good idea
to increase communication by including voice tone once in a
while.
Bottom line, over-reliance on Email can cause problems. Be
careful not to be quick to blame others if they don’t respond
to your message right away. Nobody is preventing you from
picking up the phone to call a valued client or vendor to hear
their voice tone—and let them hear
yours.
