When Not To Use Email
Because email is so pervasive, it may seem
like it should be used for everything, but this is not
true. There are clearly some situations where email
should be used and some times when you should not use
email.
Here is a list of times when you should
not use email.
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The worst time to use email is when a message is
extremely important or confidential and you
cannot risk it falling into the wrong hands. Some
people criticize the President of the United States
for not using email, but I suspect that most of his
communications need to be kept confidential!
Remember never to use email to communicate
proprietary corporate information because email is
simply not secure. |
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If you want to conduct negotiations or hold
a give-and-take conversation, or you need to reach
a consensus, email does not work very well. Whether
you want to negotiate a price reduction with a
supplier or persuade your supervisor to give you a
pay raise, issues that call for back-and-forth
discussion are best held on the phone or in
person. This is especially true if you don’t
know the other person and have the benefit of
having already established rapport. |
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You need to conduct a lengthy interview with a
long list of questions that call for detailed
answers. Typing is much slower than talking,
so the other person will appreciate not having to
carefully write and proof the answers and you will
benefit from being able to ask follow questions on
the fly. |
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Email doesn’t work very well when you need to
communicate bad news, complaints, criticism, or
anything sensitive or controversial. Without
the benefit of facial expressions, intonation, and
body language, misunderstandings and hurt feelings
could more easily result if you deliver bad news
electronically without the benefit of
paralanguage. |
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You need an immediate response from someone
who has a tendency to procrastinate. We have
all been guilty of thinking “I’ll get to it later”
and later never comes. |
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When you don’t want a permanent record.
Remember that once you send an email, you can never
get it back and you lose all control of what
happens to it. A good rule of thumb is never to
write or include anything that you wouldn’t want to
see published on the front page of your local
newspaper. |
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Participants are located physically close
together and can easily talk to each other
thereby getting the benefits of paralanguage. |
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Complicated instructions that will generate
questions and require further explanation are best
left to other, more flexible, methods of
communication. |
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When your message is long enough to fill more
than one page of text. Messages that are longer
than a few paragraphs appear intimidating to the
receiver and are less likely to be read. Long
messages also take a long time for the sender to
write and edit properly. |
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