ETIQUETTES

AIM This is not a "how-to" document, but rather an instructions that offers advice on improving your skills

In the tech savvy world that we live, long forgotten and gone are those days when we wrote letters in those yellow or green post cards! Dear or Respected Sir/Madam and Yours Faithfully are buried deep down in the core of the earth ‘The Postman always rings twice' - happens to be a film and probably happens only in the films. The garish red post box has become a piece of rarity.

But along with these are also gone those etiquettes of letter writing? Are there no prescripts for the electronic mails? Or should we ever care or follow one, if it existed in the first place? Current day conversations, chats and less formal s have become more like short hand - making them more and more cryptic

When you wrote a letter you kept in mind the following points. Purpose Person to whom it is addressed Tone you should adopt Completeness of the message Action required Conciseness of expression

Mode of address or salutation Salutation is the mode of addressing/wishing a person. by the following:- (i) Dear Sir/Madam (when we are writing to a total stranger whom we do not know at all). (ii) Dear Mr/Ms/Dr/Professor + Surname as in: Dear Dr Sinha, (when it is a formal relationship with the addressee and the writer does not know him or her personally). (iii) Dear Sujata (when the writer knows the addressee personally and the two share a semi-formal relationship).

Reference to previous correspondence, if any. Most official letters carried a subject line just above the salutation. This is for quick reference to the subject.. Content of letter The content of the letter begins on the next line and is arranged in two or three paragraphs.. Complimentary close and signature Letters usually end politely with the following phrases: Thank you, With regards, With best wishes, Hope to see

WHAT HAS HAPPENED ALONG THE WAY? Etiquettes have not taken a backseat- but thrown out of the window. We are too busy? If Top CEOs find the time for a run in the morning why cannot you write “Dear” and “Regards” or a “Thank you”. It has taken me 36 secs for this slide

ING SIMPLE STEPS

To, Cc and Bcc With only three choices for addressing an , i.e. the 'To', 'Cc' and 'Bcc' fields, you would think addressing would be trouble free. Unfortunately, that's not the case. First, there are the users who have no idea that the 'Cc' exists. Every address is listed in the 'To' even if the is only directed to one person. In cases such as this the receivers have no clue as to who should take action so either they all do something or they all do nothing.

Secondly, there are users who feel that every single should be copied to their entire address book whether it's relevant to those receiving it or not. These are the 'cry for attention' crowd. Lastly, there are users who never read the names of the people who receive a copy of an . They are the 'Did you see this?' crowd. For example, person X sends an to persons A, B and C. C immediately forwards it to A and B with the question 'Did you see this?' not bothering to see that X already sent A and B copies

In summary, here's a rough guide on how to populate the address fields: The addresses in the 'To' are for the people you are directly addressing. The addresses in the 'Cc' are for the people you are indirectly addressing. They are the FYI-ers or CYA-ers. Don't over do it here. Copy only those who need to be copied; not your entire universe of contacts.

The addresses in the 'Bcc' are like 'Cc' except that the addresses in 'To' and 'Cc' do not know that the addresses in the 'Bcc' are included in the conversation. The 'To' and 'Cc' addresses are blind to the 'Bcc' addresses. As you can imagine, use of the 'Bcc' is somewhat unethical and therefore its use is discouraged

Reply To All The 'Reply to All' button is just a button, but it can generate tons of unnecessary s. For example, if you send a dozen people an asking if they are available at a certain time for a meeting you should get a dozen replies and that's it. However, if each person hits the "Reply to All' button not only will you get a dozen replies, but so does everyone else for a total of 144 messages

A Novelist Messages should be concise and to the point. Think of it as a telephone conversation, except you are typing instead of speaking. Nobody has ever won a Pulitzer Prize for a telephone conversation nor will they win one for an message. It's also important to remember that some people receive hundreds of messages a day (yes, there are such people), so the last thing they want to see is a message from someone who thinks he/she is the next Prem Chand.

Punctuation !!! ? : ;., Don't get caught up in grammar and punctuation, especially excessive punctuation. You'll see lots of messages where people put a dozen exclamation points at the end of a sentence for added emphasis. Big deal. Exclamation points (called "bangs" in computer circles) are just another form of ending a sentence. If something is important it should be reflected in your text, not in your punctuation

Abbreviations Abbreviation usage is quite rampant with . In the quest to save keystrokes, users have traded clarity for confusion (unless you understand the abbreviations). Some of the more common abbreviations are listed in the table below. IT is recommended that you use abbreviations that are already common to the English language, such as 'FYI' and ‘NA'. Beyond that, you run the risk of confusing your recipient.

There was this lady who had some issue with her newly bought Digi Cam and had ed her young cousin whose cognizance in the field of electronics is - shall we say the 'Any problem solver'? So this cousin of hers mailed back the solution ending his s with HTH and then With Love. A SHORT STORY

She understood the technical jargon of the repair procedures but had that nagging abbreviation HTH lingering in her mind - so nagging that she mailed her cousin especially to know what is HTH! Well - Hope that Helps was not helpful after all for our lady! Current day conversations, chats and less formal s have become more like short hand - making them more and more cryptic.

Salutations The question here is "How personal is too personal?" or to be more specific, how do you open your "Dear Sir", "Dear Mr. Smith", "Joe" or none of the afore-mentioned. If you posed this question to Miss Manners, I expect she would come back with a quick answer - use the standard formalities -- but I don't know that would you agree.

In a non-business situation, it is recommended that you may bypass the standard formalities. At most, only include something along the lines of "Dear Virgil" or just "Virgil". In the business situation, things are much more complicated. Each situation will need to be evaluated on its on, but in general, use the following as a guide: If you normally address a person as Miss/Mrs./Ms./Mr. Smith then that's the way to address them in . If you normally call them by their first name then either omit the salutation or follow the guideline specified in the prior paragraph. If you are unsure, stick to the formal salutation. It's the safest bet.

Signatures On a paper document (save a tree, send ) it's typical to close the document with the following: Miss Manners Asset Manager I Will Follow... Services Since it's not possible (yet) to sign your , users will sometimes include the same information (minus the signature) at the bottom of their messages.

This practice is recommended because the originator is not always clear to the recipient. Lots of companies use abbreviated names or numbers for employee addresses and those abbreviations or numbers will mean little to someone not familiar with their significance. It is also recommend that you include your address in this information. Sometimes it can be very difficult to locate your address in the information that's a part of transmission, especially if it's going across the Internet. If your address is a business address, include your title and company name in the signature. Normally, this might be part of a letterhead, but in the world letterheads are not used (wasted space).

Attachments Back in dial-up days it is recommended that all attachments be held to 1MB in size. However, in today's ever expanding broadband world, things are a little different. Cause for users on dial-up, the 1MB limit still applies. For users on broadband or a direct connection, it would up the limit to 5MB. HOWEVER, this is not a blanket recommendation to send attachments of this size. Even if user is on broadband or a direct connection, there is no guarantee that their mailbox can handle it. With limits this small you can see that sending someone a 5MB attachment will quickly fill their mailbox and other s to bounce. Generally, the only time to send attachments of the 5MB size is when the other party is expecting it.

Send It From the Office, It Comes From The Office Personal s sent from the office are regarded as official company communications regardless of content and could possibly expose you and your company to unnecessary risk. Scary?

“Flames” What is a "flame" or specifically what does it mean "to be flamed?" To be flamed means that you've sent an to a person (s) that has caused that person (s) to respond in many, not-so-nice words. It's basically a verbal attack in electronic media. Sometimes the reason for a flame is quite obvious (keep reading), but in other cases you just never know. You might send what you think is a harmless to ten people. Nine people respond in a rational tone while number ten sends you a flame. Just remember that everyone sees the world differently. You may be lucky and spend your whole life dealing only with the people in the group of nine, but sooner or later you will run into person ten.

If you do choose to respond you will probably end up in what is known as a "flame war". This is where two or more people end up exchanging flames for an extended period of time.

Why do you need etiquette A company needs to implement etiquette rules for the following three reasons Professionalism: by using proper language your company will convey a professional image. Efficiency: s that get to the point are much more effective than poorly worded s. Protection from liability: employee awareness of risks will protect your company from costly law suits.

Sum Up: The etiquette rules? There are many etiquette guides and many different etiquette rules. Some rules will differ according to the nature of your business and the corporate culture. A list 32 important etiquette rules that can be applied to nearly all companies has been explained subsequently.

32 RULES 1. Be concise and to the point. Do not make an longer than it needs to be. Remember that reading an is harder than reading printed communications and a long can be very discouraging to read. 2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions. An reply must answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions – If you do not answer all the questions in the original , you will receive further s regarding the unanswered questions which will not only waste your time and your customer’s time but also cause considerable frustration. Moreover, if you are able to pre-empt relevant questions, your customer will be grateful and impressed with your efficient and thoughtful customer service. I

3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation. This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of you/your company, it is also important for conveying the message properly. s with no full stops or commas are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the text. And, if your program has a spell checking option, why not use it? 4. Make it personal. Not only should the be personally addressed, it should also include personal i.e. customized content. For this reason auto replies are usually not very effective. However, templates can be used effectively in this way, see next tip.

5. Use templates for frequently used responses. Some questions you get over and over again, such as directions to your office or how to subscribe to your newsletter. Save these texts as response templates and paste these into your message when you need them. You can save your templates in a Word document, or use pre- formatted s. 6. Answer swiftly. Customers send an because they wish to receive a quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or a fax. Therefore, each should be replied to within at least 24 hours, and preferably within the same working day. If the is complicated, just send an back saying that you have received it and that you will get back to them. This will put the customer's mind at rest and usually customers will then be very patient

7. Do not attach unnecessary files. By sending large attachments you can annoy customers and even bring down their system. Wherever possible try to compress attachments and only send attachments when they are productive. Moreover, you need to have a good virus scanner in place since your customers will not be very happy if you send them documents full of viruses! 8. Use proper structure & layout. Since reading from a screen is more difficult than reading from paper, the structure and lay out is very important for messages. Use short paragraphs and blank lines between each paragraph. When making points, number them or mark each point as separate to keep the overview. 9. Do not overuse the high priority option. We all know the story of the boy who cried wolf. If you overuse the high priority option, it will lose its function when you really need it. Moreover, even if a mail has high priority, your message will come across as slightly aggressive if you flag it as 'high priority'.

10. Do not write in CAPITALS. IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can be highly annoying and might trigger an unwanted response in the form of a flame mail. Therefore, try not to send any text in capitals. 11. Don't leave out the message thread (Debatable). When you reply to an , you must include the original mail in your reply, in other words click 'Reply', instead of 'New Mail'. Some people say that you must remove the previous message since this has already been sent and is therefore unnecessary. If you receive many s you obviously cannot remember each individual . This means that a 'thread less ' will not provide enough information and you will have to spend a frustratingly long time to find out the context of the in order to deal with it. Leaving the thread might take a fraction longer in download time, but it will save the recipient much more time and frustration in looking for the related s in their inbox! (Previously all letters with on a particular subject was filed separately)

12. Add disclaimers to your s. It is important to add disclaimers to your internal and external mails, since this can help protect your company from liability. Consider the following scenario: an employee accidentally forwards a virus to a customer by . The customer decides to sue your company for damages. If you add a disclaimer at the bottom of every external mail, saying that the recipient must check each for viruses and that it cannot be held liable for any transmitted viruses, this will surely be of help to you in court. 13. Read the before you send it. A lot of people don't bother to read an before they send it out, as can be seen from the many spelling and grammar mistakes contained in s. Apart from this, reading your through the eyes of the recipient will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and inappropriate comments.

14. Do not overuse Reply to All. Only use Reply to All if you really need your message to be seen by each person who received the original message. 15. Mailings > use the Bcc: field or do a mail merge. When sending an mailing, some people place all the addresses in the To: field. There are two drawbacks to this practice: (a) the recipient knows that you have sent the same message to a large number of recipients. (b) you are publicizing someone else's address without their permission. One way to get round this is to place all addresses in the Bcc: field..

16. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons. In business s, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business s these are generally not appropriate. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-). If you are not sure whether your recipient knows what it means, it is better not to use it. 17. Be careful with formatting. Remember that when you use formatting in your s, the sender might not be able to view formatting, or might see different fonts than you had intended. When using colors, use a color that is easy to read on the background. 18. Take care with rich text and HTML messages. Be aware that when you send an in rich text or HTML format, the sender might only be able to receive plain text s. If this is the case, the recipient will receive your message as a.txt attachment. Most clients however, including Microsoft Outlook, are able to receive HTML and rich text messages.

19. Do not forward chain letters. Do not forward chain letters. We can safely say that all of them are hoaxes. Just delete the letters as soon as you receive them. 20. Do not request delivery and read receipts. This will almost always annoy your recipient before he or she has even read your message. Besides, it usually does not work anyway since the recipient could have blocked that function, or his/her software might not support it, so what is the use of using it? If you want to know whether an was received it is better to ask the recipient to let you know if it was received. 21. Do not ask to recall a message. Biggest chances are that your message has already been delivered and read. A recall request would look very silly in that case wouldn't it? It is better just to send an to say that you have made a mistake. This will look much more honest than trying to recall a message.

22. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission. Do not copy a message or attachment belonging to another user without permission of the originator. If you do not ask permission first, you might be infringing on copyright laws. 23. Do not use to discuss confidential information. Sending an is like sending a postcard. If you don't want your to be displayed on a bulletin board, don't send it. Moreover, never make any libelous, sexist or racially discriminating comments in s, even if they are meant to be a joke. 24. Use a meaningful subject. Try to use a subject that is meaningful to the recipient as well as yourself. For instance, when you send an to a company requesting information about a product, it is better to mention the actual name of the product, e.g. 'Product A information' than to just say 'product information' or the company's name in the subject.

25. Use active instead of passive (Debatable). Try to use the active voice of a verb wherever possible. For instance, 'We will process your order today', sounds better than 'Your order will be processed today'. The first sounds more personal, whereas the latter, especially when used frequently, sounds unnecessarily formal. 26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT. Even more so than the high-priority option, you must at all times try to avoid these types of words in an or subject line. Only use this if it is a really, really urgent or important message. 27. Avoid long sentences. Try to keep your sentences to a maximum of words. is meant to be a quick medium and requires a different kind of writing than letters. Also take care not to send s that are too long. If a person receives an that looks like a dissertation, chances are that they will not even attempt to read it!

28. Don't send or forward s containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks. By sending or even just forwarding one libelous, or offensive remark in an , you and your company can face court cases resulting in multi-million dollar penalties. 29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters. If you receive an message warning you of a new unstoppable virus that will immediately delete everything from your computer, this is most probably a hoax. The same goes for chain letters that promise incredible riches or ask your help for a charitable cause. Even if the content seems to be bona fide, the senders are usually not. Since it is impossible to find out whether a chain letter is real or not, the best place for it is the recycle bin.

30. Keep your language gender neutral. In this day and age, avoid using sexist language such as: 'The user should add a signature by configuring his program'. Apart from using he/she, you can also use the neutral gender: ''The user should add a signature by configuring the program'. 31. Don't reply to spam. By replying to spam or by unsubscribing, you are confirming that your address is 'live'. Confirming this will only generate even more spam. Therefore, just hit the delete button or use software to remove spam automatically. 32. Use cc: field sparingly. Try not to use the cc: field unless the recipient in the cc: field knows why they are receiving a copy of the message. Using the cc: field can be confusing since the recipients might not know who is supposed to act on the message.

How do you enforce etiquette? (a) Self Imposed (b) The second step is to create a written policy. This policy should include all the do's and don'ts concerning the use of the company's system and should be distributed amongst all employees. Secondly, employees must be trained to fully understand the importance of etiquette. policy

S HAVE MORE OR LESS REPLACED LETTERS AND ARE TREATED AT PAR OFFICIALLY. IT IS INCUMBENT ON OUR PART AS USERS TO MASTER THE ART OF E- MAILING.

HAPPY MAILING.