I have been in offshore software development business for more than a decade. I have met only few of my clients in person. They are from USA, Canada, UK, Denmark, The Netherlands and Japan. So most of my communications are through email or Instant Messengers (IM). I have learned quite a lot from my clients on email communication during this time. Your email communication must be effective to rightly understand each other, specially when you are communicating in different time zones. If you can not effectively communicate, you lose almost a day or two again to explain the same thing. If you are poor communicator over email, you know the consequences.

The casual messages you exchange with your friends don’t necessarily follow any specific principles, but for professional business communication, you must follow some email etiquettes. Some of the tips, I have suggested below may have some other way of implementations depending on the nature of business, context and degree of relationship between you and your email recipient.

1. Precise and meaningful Subject line
Just imagine, how many emails you get everyday? Do you get chance to read all of those? How many emails you delete without reading? or even without opening? How do you filter/prioritize the emails?
Subject Line should be used to catch the eye of the email recipient. Short or long vague lines used in subject line creates confusion. Subject line should summarize the exact thrust of the message. Some of email software clients tags your email as spam and dumps to junk email folder.So give a thoughtful time to make the subject line easier for the recipient to clearly understand why you’ve sent the email and to quickly decide what should be done in response.

2. Smart Message Content
Remember, email is meant for short and smart communication. The most effective way is expressing your thoughts in short bullet points. If not be write precise and short paragraphs for each issues you want to discuss. Maximum 4 to 5 paragraphs are fine. If you have a page size content or longer, or you want to send illustrations, better sent as an attachment. If you want your client made work on the same document, I prefer MS Word file as it allows change tracking facilities, otherwise PDF file is safe for email attachment. Any other file format is fine, as required.

If you are going to write just a single fact or asking one just question in your email, you can use just the subject line to completely relate your message. But use some character of convention to mark the end of message in subject line. This approach is useful for those who are swamped with emails daily. The recipient gets all message only looking at the subject line without opening the mail.

3. To:, CC: and BCC: principles

So many times, I have made mistakes, putting all email addresses to the “To:” field. I did not know noticed this until one of my client complained me about it. Later I learned the etiquettes using email fields - Carbon Copy (CC:) and Blind Carbon Copy (BCC:). Put only the primary recipient email(s) on “To:” field. If the email communication should be known by other people also, then put their email addresses on “CC:” field. Most of the time, “CC:” is used to keep the people in loop in the communication they are concerned. The “BCC:” field is used when discretion is required. People in this filed are not seen by the people in “To:”, “CC:” and even “BCC:” fields. People in “To:” and “CC:” fields can see each other but not the people in “BCC:” field. That’s why its blind! If you want the people in “BCC:” know about what people in “To:” and “CC:” and other other in “BCC:” fields but people in “To:”, “CC:” and all people in “BCC:”, then you use “BCC:”. Sorry! I am sure, you must be confused by now.

4. Identify yourself
Most of the email client softwares offers the facility to create your signature file, which can be embedded to your email. If you don’t disclose your full identity, email may be treated as junk mail and sent to junk folder.
Also embedding personal details makes the recipient more open to you in communication. In most of the business communications, you must use email signature. The signature includes your name, designation, Company name, Telephone, fax, Cell, email, alternate email and IM identification names, company or personal tagline, web address etc. It is a way to draw attention of your email recipient to your products and services you offer. Also use confidentiality statements at the end to avoid the legal implications if any.

5. Avoid attachments!
Many of you must have faced problems downloading large sized attachments. You are likely to lose your nerves, when you don’t know what is the attachment about. Don’t attach file with email if its larger than 300K. Email servers offer the facility to receive the attachment size and there is a chance that your attachment may be discarded by the server itself when it receives emails. If you are sending large size attachments, better you upload the files to FTP space and give download links in email to download the file from there. Your email size will be small and light and recipient downloads the file at his convenience.

Read the Part 2 of this series in my next blog post …..
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