5 Most Common Work Email Mistakes To Avoid at All Costs

Subtle variations can help you look smarter to your audience

For my close to ten years so far in the corporate world, one consistent fascination has been with the way people express themselves over email. There are varying cultures in different organizations around the preferred mode of communication — in some places, it is phone calls or conference calls, in others it is instant messaging or in a more modern setting something akin to Slack workspaces. However, email communication is one consistent mode that is used across organizations, albeit, to varying degrees.

The frequency with which we all write emails should mean we’re all perfect email writers within the first couple of years of our professional careers, but unfortunately, that’s far from the truth.

Learning to write the perfect email is an art and a science and can’t be mastered by reading an article by some guy who thinks he’s got it all figured out, but I am still going to take a shot at trying to eliminate some painfully common mistakes from the next email you write.

#1 — Dear Sir / Madam…

Let us first begin right at the start of your email. “Dear” is a funny word. When an actually dear friend calls me a dear friend endearingly (too much dear already?), I might not cringe, but that’s still mildly acceptable.

However, the use of “dear” as a salutation in the modern language is a bit dated. I’ll admit I do use it occasionally when I know it is what my recipient prefers, and would have likely used to address me, or if it is cultural.

However, where I am writing to an unknown entity or someone who doesn’t need extra “respect” because of some sort of seniority, I’d often avoid it.

What to do instead?

What do you do when you see someone in person? I’d guess a “Hi” typically works just fine. It’s the same for an email. There’s also a quick thumb rule to know when a dear might be OK, and when it is unnecessary.

If your email is formal enough for you to call your recipient as a “Mr.” or a “Ms.” you can probably get away with Dear, but if you’re going to address them by the first name, just stick with a Hi.

“Dear Mr. Smith” or “Hi John” should do the trick.

#2 — By Way of Introduction…

When have you ever met someone at a party and put your hand forward for a shake (that used to be a thing before we met a certain virus) and said “By way of introduction, I am…”? I am guessing — never.

Then why does your written communication suddenly go into a mode where you start using such dated language?

I first came across this usage when I was very early in my career, and one of my senior colleagues used it when writing to a client. I thought that was the way you probably introduce yourself over email, and used it a couple of times until I quickly felt that’s just not my style.

What to do instead?

Introductions are absolutely necessary, especially when you’re writing to someone for the first time and you need to context-set, and so I do not mean skip the part. Just make a small change. Here are a couple of workarounds:

“As a quick introduction, I am…”

“Not sure we’ve had a chance to connect, I am…”

Keep it casual, yet respectful, but don’t be so dated you’re bordering on archaic.

#3 — The Apologetic Tone in Follow-Ups

This one is so common if I ask you to go back and read the last 5 emails you’ve received on your work inbox, you’ll see 3 of them starting their communication this way.

This typically only happens when you’re following up with someone or sending reminders. We, as humans, have a tendency to be overly apologetic for a mistake we never made. In fact, sometimes when the other person is the one who’s late with their work, or haven’t done something they promised, we feel obliged to be sorry for having to chase them. That’s absolutely ridiculous.

Here’s a common example you all have in your inbox or worse still, in your sent mail.

“Sorry for chasing, but just wanted to check if you got a chance to work on this…”

I’ve bolded the two parts that make your “follow-up” so apologetic that it sounds like you’re the one who is being overly pushy — where the reality is probably that the other person has just been tardy.

What to do instead?

Skip any undue apologies or words like “just” that make you sound like you need an excuse to follow-up on what is technically your right. Change instead to a commanding tone that reminds the other person of their deliverable:

“I’d like to see if there is an update on this…”

or an even more direct,

“Could you please let me know where we are on the status of this request?”

#4 — Not Getting to the Point

Have you ever dreaded even opening an email from a certain person because you know it’s going to be an essay rather than an email, and it is highly likely that by the end of it you’ll have gained nothing or felt like “I didn’t even need to read this.”

The result for me often is that I miss important call-to-actions from such people, or ignore their emails because I mentally treat them as spam — short of actually setting a rule to send them straight to the spam bin.

The point of an email should never be to serve as long documents but as a means of communication and hence it is important to get to the point as soon as you can without getting disrespectfully curt.

What to do instead?

Follow the very basic flow of — salutation →brief introduction/pleasantry → meat of the email →closing.

Emails don’t need to be a word longer than absolutely necessary. If you aren’t getting to the point of your email, say, by the third line, you’ve lost my attention, unless you’re a friend writing to me to check-in and tell me about this other friend you met and how you reminisced good old school days together.

But emails aren’t letters — they are most often business communication — so do just that — get to the business.

#5 — Signing Off

Let’s take a poll here. How many of you end your emails with “Regards” or “Best Regards” or a form of these words.

I’ll bet a good number of you, and I’ve been guilty of the same for a long time. However, I decided to give it a thought and felt, do I really need to “pay my regards” to a work colleague or a client?

Isn’t that more suited for an email to my grandpa?

Wait then, should I go back to the “Yours sincerely” that I was taught in high school when writing formal letters? Heck, no.

What to do instead?

Keep it casual yet professional. A couple of simple options that you can use here are below, depending on who you’re writing to. Again, there are cultural exceptions and cases where you may want to still be a bit more formal and go with some sort of “Regards” but not too often.

“Thanks, ”

“Best, ”

“Looking forward to hearing from you. ”

This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to writing clean and crisp email communications — but if you can implement only a few of these, you’ll find yourself being more effective and efficient in the way you communicate. This will often show in the way you’re perceived by your audience as well as help you get more favorable and quick responses to those emails. This whole article stemmed from the fact that my “dear” friend and writer Ikram Al Mouaswas and I are both almost obsessed with writing the perfect email, and we decided we’ll spread some self-claimed expertise to the world too! She’s much more of an expert — and so I’ll hand it over to her to take you through some of the finer details I am sure to have missed!