Write It Well

Why do we buy things from other people?  I found a product that I liked (a software program) and wanted to get more informaiton about it to determine whether it would serve my needs and if I could afford it.  I had a very positive sales experience so I took some time to think about what it was that made the sales experience so enjoyable. 

A lot of it had to do with the salespersons’ written communication skills. 

• He was a persuasive writer.  That means that he thought about the my point of view and what I care about.
• He answered ALL of my questions.
• His writing was professional.  That means that he used active language, made sure that there were no type-os, no grammatical mistakes, and no incomplete sentences. 
• He gave me the right amount of information – not too much—and told me how to get more if I need it.
• He paid attention to detail.  For example, in his e-mails to me, he included a complete signature, a compelling and descriptive subject line, and formatted the message so that it was easy to read.

Attention to detail paid off.  Keep in mind that we buy things from people who communicate effectively.  Take the time to make sure that your message is on target and professional.  Your hard work will pay off. 

You might have already been concerned about the amount of time you and your employees spend managing e-mail (read, write, find).  Have you stopped to consider the impact to the bottom line?  Based on our data and calculations, a 500-person organization spends more than $4 million dollars each year on inefficient e-mail. 

The average worker receives at least 65 e-mail messages per day.  Multiply that by the number of work days in the year (240) and that means that the average worker receives 15,600 e-mails per year. 

It takes, on average, two and a half minutes to read and respond to an e-mail message.  That means that each worker spends 39,000 minutes/650 hours/81 days per year managing e-mail.

Of the 156,000 e-mails that the average worker receives each year, about thirty percent are unnecessary.  That is equal to 27 wasted days each year.

Based on a salary of $40/hour,  27 wasted days costs about $8,640 per year.  If there are 500 employees in your organization, the total cost of inefficient e-mail is $4,320,000. 

Along with seventeen other people, I got an e-mail message last week from a project manager asking for my opinion about a certain course of action.  She asked everyone to cast their vote.  So…guess what happened? Everyone voted.  But they sent their vote to all seventeen people. 

I don’t know about you, but when I get seventeen e-mail messages about a particular topic, my eyes start to glaze over and I stop paying attention or even reading the messages.  If something important comes up, I will probably miss it. 

This is a highly educated, professional group of people.  You might have thought that these people should have been smart enough not to hit “Reply All,” but that’s not really the problem. Maybe you thought that there was no other way to know what other people thought or how they cast their vote. That’s not true.  There are ways to keep everyone in the loop without generating unnecessary e-mail messages. 

The problem is that the project manager didn’t tell us to reply directly to her, not to all seventeen people.  In this case, she could have saved the production of 289 more e-mail messages by collecting the votes and sending a message back to the group to announce which strategy got the most votes and other important points that might have come up.  No one would have missed anything that way or been left “out of the loop.”  They would have received fewer e-mail messages that way.

Remember that if you’re sending an e-mail to a large group, it is your responsibility to tell them how to respond.  If you don’t specify, they are likely to “Reply All.” 

 

If people only remember one thing from our Effective E-Mail workshop, they usually remember our tips and tools for crafting effective subject lines - that’s how important they are to effectively communicating with e-mail.  There’s a great article on Marketing Profs’ site about subject lines.  I agree with some of the comments that open rates sometimes buck logic.  Here are Write It Well’s guidelines for writing effective subject lines:

1. Make them descriptive - general subject lines like “follow up” or “meeting” won’t get your boss’ attention.
2. Make them specific - again, include the relevant details.  “List of supplies needed for tomorrow” instead of “supplies” will help your reader. 
3. Make them concise and clear - same thing here.  “thx 4 yr help -I missed the bus” is neither concise or clear.
4. Change the subject line with the subject changes.  If the subject changes, summarize the thread and re-name the e-mail. 

If you’re sending e-mail to someone who is likely to read your message on their PDA, remember that your reader will only see the first part of your message and if it’s a long one, they might miss whatever you included at the bottom of the message.  Make sure that your main point is at the beginning of any message and if there is more than one point, summarize your main points at the beginning. 

Here’s an example… I sent an e-mail to a client asking three important questions including one about the location for an upcoming training.  She wrote back and offered me three paragraphs of detailed directions at the beginning of the message.  The problem was that I was reading my e-mail from my PDA so I couldn’t tell if she had answered any of my other questions because I could only see the first part of the message. 

If she had started her message by telling me that she was answering my questions and would include directions at the end of the message, I would have known exactly what the e-mail included.  Make sure that your virtual communication is virtually complete and easy for your reader, wherever they are!