Office emails should be different from personal emails.
When you write a business email, it is not intended to be read by a friend who knows and likes you already. It is often sent to someone who has no idea who you are. Misunderstandings are often possible because of this lack of mutual knowledge. To avoid these, some basic rules can be followed:
The importance of the subject line.
Be sure to accurately describe the content of your email in the subject line. This will give the reader an idea of what you want, even before your message has been opened and read. If the email is extremely urgent, it is possible to say in the subject line: Please reply by Friday. Avoid just writing URGENT in the subject line since what you consider urgent may not be what the reader considers urgent. For you, something needed next week may be urgent but an office worker may only consider urgent what must be done in the next hour or two. Also remember that if you use capital letters in emails, it is like screaming when you speak to someone. Since even in the greatest emergencies screaming rarely helps, words should never be written in all capital letters. The word urgent should be enough or if is capitalized, Urgent. Anything more may seem slightly hysterical to whoever will read your message.
How to write an email to someone you do not know.
Start the message with Dear Mr. X, Ms. Y, Professor Z, Dr. A, and so on. Avoid Dear Sir or Madame since the person reading the message will almost certainly be either a sir or a madame, so there is no need to say so. Also in English, the word Madame has the unfortunate alternate meaning of Mama-san, or female director of a house of prostitution, so people who wish to be polite no longer call women Madame. If someone writes to you using your first name, this is not always a good reason for addressing that person by his or her first name, especially a senior employee. If you are in doubt, try writing Dear the person’s first name (if I may).
Also avoid To Whom It May Concern:, since this seems to show no interest at all in exactly who is reading the message. Usually a brief online search can find a correctly spelled name of an official, ambassador, or other important person you may need to write to. You can also phone an office to find out the name, with correct spelling, of a person you may need to write to. Not bothering to do this, in the usual style of Thai English, and just writing To whom it may concern or To the director (with no name) gives the impression that you really do not care about the person you are writing to and whoever he or she is does not matter to you in the slightest.
Write out titles.
Also avoid the Thai English style of abbreviating words such as professor. Since we write Dear Professor to show respect for the person, we should not seem to be in such a hurry that we write “prof.” or “asst. prof.” or “assoc. prof.” because we cannot bother to write out the full words.
Keep emails and the words in them as short as possible.
Show respect for how busy people are by keeping emails as short as possible. Avoid using flowery language in Thai style, or words that mean nothing. There is no need to add phrases such as Feel free to contact us for any further questions, since that suggests you think the people you are writing to are so stupid that they would not otherwise get the idea to contact you with questions, or else that they are so terrified of you that they would not dare ask any questions unless they received this permission from you.
Follow-up emails
When you have received a reply to your email, you can leave out the salutation (dear Mr.) Always reply promptly. In Thailand, emails are far too often not responded to at all, possibly due to the difficulty that many people experience when writing in English. Be sure to copy at least the most recent replies to the message you have received, so the person you are writing to can be reminded of what was sent to you to begin with. Avoid writing in answers to a copied version of the email you received, as it may look careless and sloppy. Try to write full sentences in response to questions.
Security issues
Try not to send private information by email, such as social security or bank account/credit card numbers, or anything else private such as user names and passwords. Also be sure that whatever you send cannot harm anyone’s reputation. Be careful of writing to people with attachments unless they are expecting them, and know who you are. Some spam filters automatically delete messages with attachments. Try not to send very big files. If you must do so, warn people before you send them. Keep your anti-virus software up to date.
Ccíng:
Be sure of who absolutely must be cc’d on a message and who does not need to be bothered. If the person you are writing to has cc’d the original message to others, it is polite to include them in the email exchange. There is no need to send emails to people who are not directly responsible or involved in whatever you are discussing. In Thailand, many office workers use private email addresses for official messages, even though it is much more impressive and formal to use an office email address. This can be because their office web servers are not reliable or because they have no office email address. If you have an office email address, use it for office-related emails. Your office email address should not be used for private communications, angry messages to the editors of newspapers, or other private matters. Also, if you have an office email address as well as a private email address for a person, you need only write to one of these, as writing to both can cause confusion and duplicate efforts in answering messages. Unless someone tells you their office or private email address is not working, for a professional matter write only to the office email address.
Writing style for office emails.
When you write, avoid abbreviations of verbs and other contractions. Write we are instead of we’re and so on, to avoid seeming too casual. Even though it is an email, a business email needs to appear serious and respectful.
Be sure to include another way of reaching you apart from your office email, either a personal email address, work or cell phone number.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).