Six tips for email communication
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place””
Hasn’t communication come a long way? It wasn’t that long ago when we sent our letters by snail mail. Then there was fax (accompanied by spam fax – did anyone ever take up those holiday offers?)
Then came email (letter to follow by post).
Today, email has completely revolutionised the world of business communication, replacing the time consuming nature of writing, posting an receiving return letters.
But sometimes emails get missed, deleted or never even sent to begin with (we’ve all been there!). Let’s not even mention the accidental sending of an email to an unintended recipient. Large email attachments can be another headache for email comms.
Here a few ways you can avoid some of the issues associated with email.
1. Use a Client Portal
A client portal is a safe cloud document management system that enables law firms to share and collaborate on documents with their clients and is available either as part of, or as an add-on to, a legal practice management system such as LEAP, Actionstep and others. A client portal provides a secure, safe and organised alternative for sending large confidential documents.
2. Ensure correct openings.
Do you know whether the other side is a male or a female? If not, moving away from archaic salutations such as ‘dear sir’ or dear madam’ and instead opting for something like ‘dear colleagues’ can help to avoid offence and are far more courteous, civil and in-line with modern standards.
3. Always use the signature block.
Most email systems have an easy-to-use automated signature block. Use it to eliminate the risk that you'll forget to include basic information like your name, address, and telephone number. It also makes it easier for the receiver to find your details.
4. Ensure careful use of the reply all button.
We’ve probably all been included on a reply email at some stage where the discussion has been completely irrelevant to us. For some, this can be fairly irritating. When hitting the reply all email, try to double check each email address in the recipient list before pressing Send.
5. Be careful with large attachments.
Do you sometimes find emailing large attachments can be problematic? To solve this, you might consider saving the files on a cloud-based document collaboration tool that will allow your team/clients to send links to the latest version of a document instead of attachments.
6. If in doubt, pick up the phone.
For all its benefits, email lacks one thing and that’s the ability to detect a person’s tone and cues. On the phone, a speaker's voice indicates when a statement is meant to be sarcastic, joking, or serious. But in email, it is dangerously easy to completely misread a person's intent, and respond inappropriately.
Of course there are plenty more ways that emails can go wrong. Have you sent or been on the receiving end of any email faux pas? Drop a comment below, I’d love to hear them.