Mini Rant: Emails
by Mez on Sep.09, 2010, under Rants
Please, those of you who send me emails, remember the following:-
- An email has a subject line – use it
- If you put a proper description in your subject line, it’s easier for me to find the email again
- The subject line is that – what the email is about. It’s NOT meant for the entire content of your message, no matter how brief
- If you send me an email entitled “FYI” – Don’t bitch at me when I don’t reply.
- If you ask a question, and it’s a vague one, don’t get annoyed at me when I ask for clarification
September 9th, 2010 on 10:29 am
Empty subject’s annoy me as well.
My pet peeve is signature’s with images. I can generally can put up with HTML formatted E-Mails. But boy if you attach an image, I kill that little sucker ASAP.
September 9th, 2010 on 3:04 pm
I agree. Plus it takes intelligence, i.e. brains, to succinctly describe the body of the email in the subject line.
September 9th, 2010 on 3:07 pm
* Don’t hit “reply all” just to say “thanks”.
* Don’t send me unencrypted credit card numbers.
* Don’t send me an attachment when a link will do.
* Don’t expect me to drop everything I’m doing just to answer your stupid email within three minutes.
* Don’t put “URGENT” or “Help!” in your subject line unless you really, really, mean it.
September 10th, 2010 on 2:10 pm
I tend to use subject lines as tags.
So I just put in a few words that are relevent for searches. Interestingly, all technical people I know immediately understand why I did that, and some start doing it as well.
I tend to see a better reply rate, esspecially for commercial emails, where somebody wants to reply to an old mail, or is reminded of an old mail, just because it shows up in a relevant search.
Off course some mail clients do full-text searching, a lot of them don’t.
September 10th, 2010 on 6:09 pm
* signatures should never be larger than the body… ever
The list hits frequent points I see too. I agree.