In August 2008 Marc Hogan was bet £1 that he couldn’t become a stand up comic in less than 12 months and perform a one man comedy show at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in August 2009 for 21 nights. He won the bet!
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from email. Amen”
Email is incredibly useful (unless you’re Royal Mail) but I’ve found that it can also have a negative effect on how businesses communicate.
Here are some simple ideas to make your email communication more effective.
Email rapport
We all learn in business to match words, voice tone and posture to create rapport with colleagues and customers, why can’t we do the same with email?
You could match:
1) The header.
2) Greeting e.g. Dear Sir, Hi Marc etc.
3) The sign off.
Look at:
1) Their sentence structure. Can you match it?
2) Can you answer any questions in the same order as their original email?
3) Do they use bullets or numbering? Can you match these?
4) Are there any words or phrases they particularly like to use?
Do not request read receipts
These are generally annoying and may make people think you don’t trust them. Remember, not everyone uses the same email software so they may not work anyway! It is much better if at the start of your message you say, “This is really important, please can you confirm receipt and actions to be taken”. Or even better call them and check that they got it!
Be active not passive
Try to use the active voice of a verb wherever possible. For instance, “I will speak to customer services today,” sounds better than, “Your query will be raised with customer services today”. The first sounds more personal and human whereas the latter sounds like C3P0 sent it.
Time for a tea break
Before sending your email leave it for 5 minutes, or longer if you wrote it when stressed, angry or drunk! No email is that urgent that it can’t wait 5 minutes, if it’s that urgent, phone them. It could be time for a nice cup of tea. Then read it again. Ask yourself, how would you feel if you received it? If you’re satisfied with the answer you’re ready to send it. If not, rewrite it!
Remember the person in front of you
One final thing… if you’re serious about improving your communication, you need to think about how people perceive you in the round. And that includes giving people your full attention – never respond to messages or texts on your Blackberry / iphone, whilst you’re talking face to face with someone else. I’m pretty sure none of you would walk into a meeting with a pile of household bills, charity letters, credit card bills, invitations and proceed to open them, read them and reply whilst telling your colleague to, “Carry on, I’m listening”!
Click here to watch Marc’s showreel. If you would like to find out more about Marc, visit www.marchoganlive.com or to book him for a speaking event please contact your favourite speaker bureau.
