I’d been telling people I worked with in the Writing Center that in a business environment, emails should be short, easy to reply to, and direct.
I thought I knew what that meant… I’m a good writer, confident in my ability to be professional and clear… direct and concise… I asked a client a question 7 days ago about something related to their company… something I needed to know in order to finish something for them, and never got a reply. At all.
I basically wrote:
Can you give us more information about your [type of service] services? For example, which products on your site apply to these offers? How big can orders be? Do you have any electronic or print materials describing these services we can reference?
And then I said “my goal is to do x, y, and z with this information” in about 2 sentences…
I really thought that this was concise enough. It really only asks one question “can you give us more information” and then clarifies what types of information we need. If I saw an email like that in the Writing Center, I would have said “good job with being clear, clarifying, etc” and thought it fit the business environment.
However, like I said, I never got a reply, and today we were about to finish the project for this client and we still had these unresolved questions.
The bosses from Portland came down today and our President shot an email to this client to get the issue resolved because for one thing, time is running out. His email was literally 2 lines long and just asked
“Hey [name], do you do [x] or do you do [y] for your customers with your [type of service] services? Thanks, [Name].”
…
We got a reply in 5 minutes. He saw my email and suggested that it might have APPEARED that I was asking a complicated question simply by having so many words in my query.
So really folks, short is better. It’s better to shoot off a few emails several times a day with specific questions than to put them all into one email and send it out hoping for a long complete reply.
Moral of the story is: ask one question per email. Make it something that the person can answer sitting down in about 30 seconds. DON’T suggest options or alternative ways of seeing the question. “Either/or” emails work well. Essayistic thoughtful ones do not.
DON’T BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR.
Amine | 17-Aug-06 at 8:13 pm | Permalink
Nice post, totally realistic, I see stuff like this happening everyday on my job, i don’t have to deal with it most of the time, but my co-workers do.. and i see that a one question short message get answered a lot faster than long detailled msgs.
I don’t know about sending several short emails a day, it just feels weird, kinda like “you don’t know what’s going on.. type of deal…”.
xjaymanx | 17-Aug-06 at 9:12 pm | Permalink
Hmmm, as a technical writer for a software company, I’d have to disagree. Using one question for email, especially if you have several questions, is a bit inconvenient. Plus if a manager gets dozens of emails per days, too many can get lost.
My solution, use bullets:
+ Can you give us more information about your services?
+ Which products on your site apply to these offers?
+ How big can orders be?
+ Do you have any materials we can reference?
Something like that, hehe ;)
drdougfir | 18-Aug-06 at 6:45 am | Permalink
it seems no one is willing to take a stab at open ended questions over email these days. i often find it easier to call them on the phone if i want to ask a series of interrelated questions.
stupid non-english majors. :-P
emily | 18-Aug-06 at 8:32 am | Permalink
xjaymanx,
I agree it’s totally inconvenient, and in my opinion lame, but it’s easier to answer if you’re asked one question at a time. *shrugs*
Travis | 19-Aug-06 at 12:13 pm | Permalink
You’re absolutely right. I’ve been writing emails in a very business/enterprise like environment for over a year and thought I had mastered how to write very direct to the point emails. But every time I get an email from my manager I see a new way I can shorten messages and be more efficient. It makes my brain hurt.