e-Etiquette
What are you really trying to say?
Compare these sentences:
I didn’t steal that car.
I didn’t steal that car.
I didn’t steal that car.
I didn’t steal that car.
I didn’t steal that car.
If you read them carefully, they all have different meaning by putting emphasis on different words within the exact same sentence.
We all sat through 8th grade English right? Who thought then what we were learning was going to be so important now? One of the biggest struggles in business is proper etiquette through email. How do we know what the sender meant if we can’t hear their voice or read their body language? We rely so much on technology that our face to face communication is less and less. Sales, customer service, IT….most departments within your company rely heavily on email to communicate with internal and external customers. How are you as an individual preparing yourself and/or your employees to communicate this way? I can tell you that if you are “assuming” or “expecting” that someone already knows “the rules”, you may be sadly mistaken. Right now a lot of companies are experiencing 4 generations in the workplace and this means that they are dealing with 4 different types of communication styles. This is going to continue on as the baby boomers retire and generation Z enters the workforce. Emails may start to look more like this:
LOL! Sry I missed ur call. I wuz OTL. I gthrd some 411 4 u. Pls CMB when u have a min.
Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme. My point is that one word, or lack of, can make or break a sales transaction, a customer relationship, or giving instructions to your team. TTN offers e-learning courses covering this topic and there are many helpful websites available that you can reference or direct people to. By providing the right tools, you are setting others up for success. Email is your voice, what are you really trying to say?
