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Email works great when you want to ask a
question or deliver a message quickly and you
don’t care how fast you get your answer – or even
if you will get a reply. Email is a wonderful way
to send a quick message, but it is not necessarily
the best route to a quick reply. Because your
reader is under no obligation to read or act upon
your message in a timely fashion, don’t hold it
against them if they don’t respond immediately |
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If you want to communicate directly with a
particular person in an organization rather than
fight your way past a gatekeeper, email works
great. As long as you have the correct email
address, chances are your message will be read by
your intended recipient. While I have met a
few high level executives who have their assistants
read their email, most still consider their email
account to be private.
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Email is wonderful when you need to communicate
with someone in a different time zone or
country and you don't want to adjust your
schedule to make a phone call. Thanks to email,
both the sender and the receiver can conduct
business during normal working hours.
I once worked with a large law firm that had
offices in both London and India and used email
to communicate and work on documents twenty
four hours per day. They even advertised in
London that if you delivered a matter before
five PM they would have it resolved by the next
morning!
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Because email is electronic, you can easily
deliver the same message to multiple
readers. Whether it’s a memo for the five other
members of your team or an electronic newsletter
with 10,000 subscribers, email makes it easy to
deliver news quickly, easily, and at no cost. |
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Email is valuable if you need to maintain a
written record of your electronic conversation.
Of course, you should NOT use email if you DON’T
want a written record. Later, in the chapter on
best practices, we will discuss the reality that
emails have the potential to last forever. |
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When it’s urgent. If something is due at
eight AM, you can work late at night and still
deliver it on time using email. While it’s possible
that there will be technical problems in the
transmission, most emails are delivered without
problems. Many times my clients work on proposals
until the last minute and deliver them on time
using email. |
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When you want to save money. Email is
basically free and provides near instant delivery
so it is far more economical than conventional mail
or delivery services such as FedEx. |
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Email is perfect when you are traveling
because it can be accessed from anywhere as long as
you can log onto the internet. Leaving email
messages beats phone tag if the other person is
also traveling, especially if other people are in
different time zones. This is becoming even more of
an advantage with the increasing availability of
Blackberries and other cell phones with email
capability. |
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When you need to be unobtrusive. An email
sent to someone takes far less of their attention
than a phone call. |
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Email is wonderful for providing factual
information that doesn’t require an answer. For
example, a price quote or to tell someone what time
a party starts. |
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To introduce yourself or your company to
someone who is unfamiliar with you. Email can be a
great way to get information into someone’s hands
without having to make a sales call. Many times
people will not respond immediately, but will save
email and retrieve it later if they need the
information. We have experienced delayed response
to emails sent as long as two years ago. |
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To send requested documents. While it is not
polite to send large unrequested attachments, email
is perfect for quickly delivering requested
items. |
