Since we’ve been talking about email effectiveness here on the blog for the last little while (getting the subject line right, not sending FYI emails, and the importance of grammar and spell check), here’s one more. Make it easy for your addressee to get a hold of you. Make sure your signature line has at least one alternate way to contact you. You want people to act on what you say, right? So make it simple. Sometimes, the other person will realize that a back-and-forth email exchange is not the best way to resolve whatever it is you’re discussing. Give them easy access to your phone number so that they can pick up the telephone and get things dealt with. Don’t make them hunt for this information, make it effortless for them. Here’s the odd thing about this – people may not notice that you’re offering up this alternate way to contact them. But they sure as heck will notice if you don’t. Do you really want to be remembered because you irritated them? Yeah, didn’t think so. So make sure that you have your phone number or other easy way for people to contact you right there in your email signature line.
Next blog post I’ll have one final idea in this series. But in the meantime, what else do you have to add to the list of how people (unknowingly) sabotage their credibility through their email communication? Tell us, so that we can all be warned!