E-mails Should Not Be Like a Game of Tennis!

You write an e-mail to a staff member about a client having an issue with something. The staff member writes you back, but you don’t quite understand it. You write them again, asking for clarification.

Has this ever happened to you? People use e-mail too frequently, making messages more and more convoluted as they go back and forth like a tennis ball.

Using e-mail is a great tool, especially if you are trying to cut down on company costs via international phone calls and postage fees. One of the downfalls of it is not getting the message across between yourself and the receiver.

Sure, there are times that e-mail is appropriate, such as when you need some sort of record from a client to fulfill their product order. But when it comes to information exchange between you and your colleague, it really depends on what issue is at hand.

The best way would be to either call or chat face to face with the other person. At this point, you can hash out the issue quickly, without having to read threads of long e-mails. If you prefer, you can ask the person to send you an e-mail with a summary of what you discussed, just so you have a record of it. You never know when someone would come back to you and tell you that they didn’t ask you to do a certain task. At least you will have proof of it.

Another point I would like to stress is to archive your e-mails for a certain period of time that either you or your company feels would be appropriate. You can read about this on an article I wrote entitled “8 Steps to Archiving E-mails”.

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Until next time,

Take care - of your clutter!