Starting an e-mail with “hi”, ending it with “see you more”, starting with “I don’t know if you’ve seen my last e-mail”… So many formulas that make our hair stand on end in e-mail communication.
Livecareer surveyed more than 1,000 employees to find out what they disliked most and what they liked most about email communication. To start an email, nothing beats, according to them, a “hello”, or a “hello madam or sir”. Knowing that eight out of ten people said they liked having their first name used to start a conversation. On the side of the worst beginnings, there is of course the fact of not writing any greeting at all, of using the word “coucou”, “hi” or “hey”. The lack of greeting is more severely judged by 26-40 year olds than by younger people.
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On the best and worst ways to conclude an email, you should know that on the side of what is appreciated, there is “thank you in advance”, “have a nice day or a good week”, the traditional “cordially”, “in the ‘waiting for your response’ or ‘sincere greetings’. On the other hand, for the respondents, there is no question of not putting any polite formula, a simple “thank you”, a “see you more” or “everyone”. But differences appear according to the size of the companies. In the smallest of them, we are less observant. A “thank you” or a “more” will only be considered impolite by 3% of employees in small companies, while it will not pass for 18% of employees in large companies.
You have to start the email gently…
To start a message, at the top of the ranking of the most hated formulas are the passive-aggressive “I don’t know if you saw my last email” or the “Sorry for repeating myself…”. A consensus is emerging for the “I hope you are well”, “I hope you are having a good day” or even the most direct “To return to our previous conversation”.
Emojis, in small businesses, are accepted without problem for 80% of respondents. A little less in the larger ones, with only 59% of respondents agreeing with the use of emojis. Emojis or not, email is considered by 49% of respondents to be the favorite form of communication at work, ahead of calls, 23%, instant messaging 21% and, far behind, in-person communication, which has no preference. than 7% of respondents.