Blogs

Email etiquette – opening and closing an email

Wednesday January 19th, 2011, 9:30 am

When you open an email which do you prefer, Hi, Dear, Fred or no salutation?  A recent survey we conducted reveled that ‘Dear’ is still regarded as the most professional greeting (66%) followed by Name (33%) and  Hi (13%).  No greeting is felt to be unprofessional and sloppy.

OK, so you open with a professional salutation, the content is grammatically correct and there are no spelling errors. (We should be so lucky!) What about how you close the email?  What do you prefer, Cheers, your sincerely, kind regards or nothing?

Our survey revealed that Cheers is not professional (55%) and seen as sloppy by some (13%) as are smiley icons (75%).  The most professional signs off are either kind regards or best wishes (67%).

Am I just a grumpy old women, part of a bye gone era of business (Generation X) or a seasoned business women trying to maintain standards?

What is you option on the best email etiquette to open and close an email?

For more time saving tips and hints why not buy a copy of one of our books or let us run a Smart Email Management workshop for you and your colleagues.
Or follow us on:

Tags: ,

Comments are closed.