Tips for Texting, Emailing & Cell Phones

Tips for better online and cell phone behavior (etiquette)

• Try not to use email to address problems better handled face to face – shows your maturity and respect for the other person
• Email is wonderful – but picking up the phone for a real conversation is always a better option to enhance any relationship – personal or business
• Read & reread your email messages before hitting the send button – to check for spelling & grammatical errors, but just as importantly to be watchful of the tone – emails make it to easy to misread between the lines, so always be polite and respectful
• Email, especially business related, should always be professional – not cutesy or too casual
• Be sure to respect & protect others email addresses – whenever possible – put addresses in the BCC line so that email addresses aren't’ publicized.
• Always remove others email addresses when forwarding stories or jokes.. you never know where they will end up.. (remove the FW or FWD from the subject line)
• Put something in the subject line - even 1 or 2 words (directions, hello, estimate, questions) will help the receipient know what is is and if it needs to be addressed now or later
• This is very true for business emails: don't respond to e-mail immediately – it’s too easy to hit the reply button after a quick response, but the downsides to this is you may appear to be constantly reachable to colleagues, too eager to clients or upper management so unless it’s urgent, wait a few hours and be sure you’ve thought about your response and are focused on the task at hand.
• Make sure your email messages have a purpose…
• Never TYPE IN ALL UPPERCASE. Uppercase implies that you are SHOUTING.
• By the same token, you don’t want to use all lower case letters, especially in professional e-mails. Some say that writing in all lowercase appears you don't have enough respect for your recipient to use proper capitalization.
• You should never be too busy to use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation in your e-mails (although using incomplete sentences and lists for explanation is acceptable).
• Whenever you send professional emails – whether those are to your vendors, customers, clients, organization members - use their formal titles followed by their last name unless they invite you to use their first name – remember – show respect.
• Return calls in a timely manner – ideally always within twenty-four hours whenever possible.
• Leaving a voice mail message – it helps to give your number at both the beginning and end of the message and tell them when it’s convenient for them to return your call "I’ll be home this evening" or "back in the office after 2"
• Using your cell phone – be respectful of those around you especially try not to scream into your cell phone. Cell phone speakers are very sensitive and can transmit your slightest whisper – those around us aren’t interested in our conversations…
• When you are with someone at dinner – in a meeting – at an event – give them your full attention; most people find it rude & disrespectful to have those they are with texting, accepting/making cell phone calls and the like - if they are important enough to be with, then they are important enough to have your full attention...
• When you are in public settings - restaurants, places of worship, social gatherings-work & pleasure, turn your cell phone off or put it on vibrate so as not to disturb those around you-need to take the call - then take it outside!
• Technology is wonderful, but it sure can be annoying...