How to create a better office environment with furniture, supplies, and products

Email, to some, is an informal means of communication. However, when you're writing business emails it's important to keep the information clear and the impression as professional as though you were sending an actual business letter on your best linen paper.

Not keeping emails professional can make it or break it for you on certain deals. I send many emails. If I know the person well or consider them a friend I will get casual but I never get crazy.

If I don’t know the person or if I’m sending off an email with say quotes for a new writing client I make sure that my email is professional looking.

I’ve been thinking about this because I myself get quite a bit of business related email. Some of the things that drive me nuts include:

An obscure subject, such as “Hi” or “Hey you” or “Job” – job, huh. Worse yet is not noting a subject at all. Most emails I get with no subject go straight to my spam. I don’t have time to deal with uncertain emails I simply depose them.

My work is fairly casual so first names are often the norm. However, in many businesses it’s wise to start emails with, “Mr. Brown” instead of Jim. Until you know someone better that’s basic common sense in the majority of businesses. I did say that my business is more casual. I like using first names but I don’t like when people shorten my name to a name of their choice like Jen, Jenny, or worse, J. That’s obnoxious since last time I checked my name was still Jennifer. If you know me, fine, if not please use the name I tell you I have.

Don’t send business emails from an email account called, Hotlicks@lycos.com. Emails like Beerbombfreak@gmail.com are also not wise. Come on now; this is just asking for someone to not take you seriously. Use your own name; it looks more professional and if you can, send business emails from your own domain if you have one like, JimBrown@officepaper.com or use a work domain. Also, I may just be nitpicking; but to me, a free email service like gmail always sounds more professional than a free service like hotmail.

Don’t use weird formatting. I’ve gotten emails where someone tried to paste a fancy table in. That may have looked fine when they sent it but my email busted up the table and I had one gigantic line of text going down a ½ inch section of my page. Too many different colored fonts can make an email really hard to read too. I’d stick with simple, trustworthy black.

Forget the emoticons. I use these rarely. I do use them in twitter but you only have so many words there to make a point. You should not have to use emoticons in an email. Especially not with someone you don’t know well.

Below is an example of my biggest email pet peeve. I changed it up a bit so as not to call anyone out but I really hate this kind of stuff.

J

LOL, that is TFLO and IBFCP.

B

That was basically the whole email. Sure I did make up IBFCP; but it was something else like this that made utterly no sense. I never did find out what they were trying to tell me. Plus how long does it take to sign your name? 3 seconds! Geez.

Press enter. Don’t write 80 lines of text. My eyes can’t handle it.

Lastly be polite. Polite should not be overlooked simply because you’re sending an email. Say please, say thank you, say things like, “Thanks so much for your time.” It only takes a moment to be polite and it makes a great impression.

What are your pet peeves about business emails that you’ve received?