Email sign-offs
by Miki Saxon
I don’t know about you, but I’m hyper aware of “traditional” writing gaffes. Little things, such as using capital letters, punctuation and correct spelling. I suppose it dates me, but I have little-to-no tolerance of all lower case letters, obviously poor grammar and misspelled words in business communications of any kind—including email.
It takes little effort to use the shift key and periods; by the time someone is in a position that requires communicating with others she should know that “your important to us” doesn’t cut it and, as to spelling, since all one needs to do is enable spell check, there’s no excuse, whether from poor typing (me) or lack of spelling skills. To me, not doing so shows a certain lack of respect; an attitude that says, “I can’t be bothered;” or sheer laziness.
But have you ever thought that the way you end an email impacts the reader? Do closing salutations impact you? I have to admit that I didn’t give it much thought externally, except occasionally, on very important first contacts; nor did I read much into those I received.
I’ve been know to switch from “Best regards” to “Regards” without a thought—until yesterday. That’s when I read ‘Yours Truly,’ the E-Variations and learned just how much people read into email sign-offs.
NIce that it’s such an easy fix, just added the sign-off salutation to my email sig. I can still change it, but at least something will always be there, independent of my memory, time constraints and laziness.
Take a moment right now and do yours—it’s one of those “better safe than sorry” things.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
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