The number of untrained email users is staggering. Former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo! Tim Sanders estimates that 90% of business communication is email based and only 10% of email users receive adequate training. When this statistic is combined with data from a market research firm Radicati Group who say the 1.2 billion email users in 2007 will increase to 1.6 billion in 2011, an estimate of 1.44 billion people will be untrained in email by 2011. Your workplace and business likely suffers from poor email etiquette – and it isn’t going to get better anytime soon unless you doing something about it with the rules of email etiquette in this article.

Good Netiquette

Email etiquette, commonly referred to as “netiquette”, defines the rules of email communication. Netiquette is important because an email sent cannot be retrieved. You cannot reach through the computer cables to retrieve an email sent to your boss in a regretful emotional outlash where you swore to destroy his dictatorship.

Though you probably hate the thought of writing a grammatically correct email to a friend, netiquette in everyday email communication helps clarity, understanding, and productivity. Your emails will get the proper understanding they deserve. From having the right mindset when seated, to sending an email, here are the most important netiquette rules to follow so you’re one of the 160 million users in 2011 that know what they’re doing when they check their inbox:

1. Emotional emails. Do not send an email when you are angry. You could say things you later regret and the receiver of your little outburst will have a record of your email that could be used against you. Too many careers have been destroyed from angry emails. Your email may appear okay as you compose it, but let time clear your mind so you don’t regret clicking the “send” button.

I also recommend you reread your email to check for sentences, phrases, and words that can be interpreted another way to your main intent. You may come off as rude even though you try to be nice. A simple joke you think is funny may be offensive to someone else simply because they misinterpreted the joke. The lack of nonverbal communication in email makes it a poor medium to communicate emotion.

2. Unnecessary information. Most people waste too much time browsing their inbox the way it is without having to read long messages. Do people a favor by keeping your emails short. Provide the necessary facts and cut the fat.

Having said that, you still need to provide all the information upfront whenever possible. It is frustrating and time-consuming to ask questions for more information that could have easily been provided in the initial email.

3. HTML. You do not need to know exactly what is HyperText Markup Language (HTML), but basically it is used to make websites look pretty. Making text bold in email uses HTML. When you copy and paste emails from websites, you may also unknowingly copy the HTML code across. The HTML in the email you send does not always look like the email someone receives. Funny enough, the message sent is not the message received. Some email programs are not HTML compatible so when they receive HTML emails, weird HTML code might show and other formatting issues may occur.

Simply provide a website link if you are going to copy an entire web page. If you want to copy snippets of information, not only do you risk breaking copyright laws, but at your discretion you can copy the text across to a text file program (such as Notepad, not Microsoft Word) and then copy the text from there into your email program. Copying the text to a text file program, such as Notepad, removes HTML and prevents weird formatting issues.

4. Reply to all. It is frustrating to receive emails from group members who simply say “Yes, I can come” or “No” when you do not need to receive them. Stop being lazy. Please take the small amount of time to address your email to the specific people your email is intended for.

5. Forwarding to all. I am a big victim of this email mistake! When subscribing to my newsletter, I advise the person to add me to their address book or whitelist to ensure my emails reach them. Because of this, and having an email list that contains tens of thousands of people, I am in many people’s address book. Often, subscribers receive an email and forward it to everyone in their address book. The result for me is a daily cleanup of forwarded emails, which often contain attachments that clog data efficiency.

Chain emails are so annoying! The next time you get an email with a poem, story, or series of images you love, keep them to yourself. A lovely story about patience you forward to friends may infuriate them.

6. Making people’s email addresses known. It is considered rude to send out an email to several people making their email address visible in the “To” box. Unless the recipients know each other and are comfortable sharing their email addresses, avoid this bad mistake. You can use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) function of emails to hide recipients’ email addresses. The Bcc function will ensure everyone receives the email, but it looks like the email is addressed to a specific individual.

7. Removed message thread. Here is another email etiquette mistake that I am a victim of everyday: not having the replied message in the sent message. Not having the replied message in the sent message is almost the face-to-face conversational equivalent of being bashed across the head and forgetting what was discussed in the conversation. Based on the hundreds of emails I receive everyday, I estimate 10% of people do not attach their replied message. I easily forget what was sent in an email someone replied to because I frequently have discussions with multiple people at the same time.

Make it easy for people to know what you are talking about by ensuring their message you reply to is attached. Google’s email service, Gmail, is great at keeping track of past messages. Be sure to change your email settings so that messages you reply to get included in your reply.

8. Use of abbreviations. Friend to friend or family member to family member, abbreviations can be fine. It is entirely up to you. Problems arise when abbreviation usage in emails carries over into the workplace and other areas where professionalism is needed. Here is a useful video on email etiquette that I thought you might find interesting:

A three minute Fox Providence presentation discussing email etiquette. It focuses on professionalism by avoiding abbreviations.

9. Unknown abbreviations. AFAIK 404 but I’ll POAHF because I TILII. Do you know what that means? Very few people do. It means: As far as I know I have no clue, but I’ll put on a happy face because I tell it like it is.

Good email etiquette avoids unknown abbreviations. Though you can get away with abbreviations when emailing friends, for example – because it is an efficient technique for a slow typer – communication problems occur when the receiver is unaware of the abbreviation. What may seem apparent to you might confuse the recipient of your email. How would you like it if a friend sent you an email with ADO, YOOAD, WWMT, and other weird abbreviations? (I just made those last few ) You would feel annoyed at having to clarify something the person should realize in the first place.

10. Poor subject heading. If you leave the subject field empty or simply put “Re:” in the field, you avoid an important function of email communication. When someone receives an email, it is common for them to quickly scan the subject heading of each email to see what emails need to be firstly addressed. Your goal in personal emails is not to write the most captivating subject heading so people open your email. Write an honest and specific subject heading that reflects your email message. Instead of writing “HELP!!” to your telecommunications company, you could write “Help Needed With Phone Wires”. Sometimes, if I think a subject heading is important for personal emails, I can take up to a minute to come up with a good subject.

11. Poor sent time. Be weary of the time you send your email. This mistake is dependent on a few things. Firstly, with the worldwide connectivity and never-ending discussion available over the Internet, it does not matter what time you send an email to someone living in a different time zone. Secondly, some people could not care what time you send your email as they only care about reading what you have to say. You do, however, need to be careful of the time you send emails to some people such as coworkers, managers, and clients, for example.

A job candidate’s email containing a resume sent to the human resources department at 3am will not look good as it sits in the inbox. It may jeopardize the job candidate’s chances of working with the company. Send an email at another time if you think the recipient will judge you poorly based on the time you send it.

12. Excessive Capitalization. IT IS CONSIDERED RUDE TO TYPE IN CAPITALS. Typing in capitals is the digital equivalent of yelling in someone’s face. Hopefully, you would not yell in someone’s face so do not do it in the digital world. On the other end of the spectrum, do not type all your text in lower case. It is simple grammar.

13. No spell checking. I am guilty of this a few times and have been pulled up by the grammar police for teaching communication and misspelling words. (Apparently I am not allowed to misspell words!) Spell check your more formal emails. Most popular email providers should provide the option of spell checking. If your email service does not have a spell checker, you can copy your email into a word editing document to spell check it.

14. Poor use of attachments. Any email attachment over one mega byte (approximately 1000KB) is pushing email etiquette rules. Not everyone has broadband or cable, and these people do not want to spend 5 minutes downloading an unnecessary file. For large attachments, you are better off using file upload services such as Mega File Upload and 2shared. With these services, you upload a file to their website and they give you a link you can send to others where they can download the file.

Another rule for email attachments is to consider the format of your attachment. Not everyone can open a file with the .odt extension.

15. Requesting delivery and read receipts. Delivery and read receipts is a feature in all email programs (that I’m aware of). The feature lets you send an email and have the recipient confirm it was received. You are notified with an email that they received your email only if they confirm it. The feature is therefore an unreliable way to check if someone receives your email. It also adds more clutter to an already busy inbox. In most cases, you don’t need to know if an email was received because modern technology with email deliverability is good.

If you need to check whether your email was received, ask the person in your email to reply saying they got your message. If your message is really that important, which it rarely is over email, maybe you should phone the person. Do not blame the recipient of your email for a problem you can control.

16. Write. Send. Edit. That is obviously in the wrong order if you follow good email etiquette. We sometimes think about editing our email once we have sent it. Get this common email mistake in the right order: 1) Write, 2) Edit, and 3) Send. Wow! Submit. Done.

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The telephone is a different medium to traditional face-to-face communication. What does this mean to you? Rules change and tips can be adapted to help you build your relationship. What does not change is the fundamental human psychology of the two individuals at either end of the phone.

Human psychology is about fulfilling needs and wants. You go to the grocery store to buy food to fulfill your need to eat. You buy an expensive shirt because you want to look good. You communicate with others to fulfill your social and identity needs. Attraction, intimacy, and friendship work on human psychological wants and needs. Because of this, you will see how these phone skills I am about to share with you can be adapted to your everyday conversations. Learning how to make someone fall in love with you is therefore neither manipulative nor deceptive as it is a matter of you fulfilling the person’s needs and wants through communication.

If you want others to literally fall in love with you and not just like you more, you must understand attraction. These tips are about building likability over a different type of communication medium – the phone – and do not act as a substitute for attraction. The tips I am about to give you to make someone fall in love with you over the phone, when applied with techniques to build attraction in women and men, can make the opposite attracted to you.

Learning these phone skills is a sure-fire way to build a strong relationship fast and have your new client wanting a business relationship, a friend staying connected with you, or a new acquaintance loving you. A stupid word of warning: do not begin avoiding people face-to-face once you realize the power of these phone skills!

They Need to Be Receptive

The first rule you must obey is checking the person you are talking to over the phone is receptive to you. Regardless of anything wonderful you say, nothing will matter if the person does not pay attention.

If the person has a young child howling louder than a wolf, you will be ignored. The person will hear, but not listen. Your messages will go no further than the other end of the phone line as the person’s mind is elsewhere, preoccupied with the distraction. When we do not have the time to talk, a distraction arises, or we need to do a task, the only thoughts running through our mind are similar to: “How long will it be until this damn person shuts up? I’ve got something to do!”

The first rule of receptivity over the the phone is to make it a habit of checking if the person can talk with you. Ask upfront if the person has time to talk. After the greetings, simply say, “Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?” This makes you courteous and unobtrusive on the person’s space.

The first rule of receptivity ensures the person is receptive at the start of the call and the second rule will make sure the person is receptive during the call. While talking on the phone, interruptions arise. Some can be undetectable, yet others can be heard over the phone. When you hear a baby howling, a door bell ring, or a loud bang, don’t ignore it! Say what sound you heard then ask if the person needs to attend it. The empathy you communicate by acknowledging potential interruptions will increase your likability and ensure the person is tuned in to what you say.

It’s You!

You’re going through a routine day walking down the street. The world is boring, people are getting through their day, and everything appears it would be the same without your presence. What happens though, if at the other end of the street you see a best friend you have not met for five years?

You see your best friend and your energy amplifies a gazillion times! Many memories, experiences, and feelings gush back to you in an intense emotional rush. You run up to the person. “It’s you! I can’t believe it!” Your ecstatic to stumble upon your friend!

The lesson you can learn from this is what I call the “It’s You!” technique. When you ring the person or the person rings you, say your normal greeting in an average mood. Once the person introduces himself, you become surprised, or rather energized, to talk with the person. Wait for the person’s introduction then amp up your energy as if you were talking to that old friend you saw on the street. This makes the person pleasantly thrilled to talk to you.

If you always talk energetically over the phone, your energy with the “It’s You!” technique will not have the sincerity and pleasant thrill because the high energy is normal for you. Only when you authentically convey happiness to be talking to the person more than you would with normal people does this technique work. The feelings of importance the person receives makes it a great technique to help them fall in love with you over the phone.

(In an article on how to be interesting without saying a word, I applied this escalating technique on smiling by gradually increasing your smile when you meet someone; instead of walking around smiling or instantly giving off a big smile. These two “escalation techniques” bring sincerity and warmth to your personality.)

Repeat Their Name

The fourth tip I recommend you whack into your new phone skills bag of tricks is mentioning the person’s name more often. As Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People writes, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Our names are a sweet tune of music to our ears. It is a fast way to build any relationship.

You need to know one warning about this technique. If you mention someone’s name too often, you come off as a try hard, needy, and desperate person – much like a poor salesman.

If you are like most people, you can comfortably increase the frequency you say the person’s name. You can get away with mentioning their name more often than in a face-to-face conversation because the phone is a different medium. The phone inhibits intimacy.

If the person begins to mentally drift away from you, hearing their name will reinvigorate their interest. The person can subliminally fall in love with you.

How to Make Up for No Body Language With Your Voice

Another difference you can take advantage of over the phone to enhance your relationships and make the person fall in love with you is countering the inability to communicate with body language. Our nonverbal communication is a large tower from where we broadcast strong signals. A simple message like “you’re funny” can be strengthened many times through body language. Some attraction experts even claim body language alone is enough to make someone fall in love with you.

Your nonverbal communication helps others understand you. Without the visual option to see one another over the phone, yours and their inability to read body language can hurt understanding, connection, likability, and attraction. Your voice is the only form of nonverbal communication over the phone, making it a powerful medium of communication.

You can improve your phone skills despite the lack of connection built through body language by communicating extra energy through your voice. I estimate varying your vocal tonality and energy an extra 30%. If you are happy the person did something well, put an extra 30% of energy in your voice when saying, “That is awesome! Congratulations!” If you are sad, lose 30% of energy in your voice by saying, “I’m… I’m sorry to hear that…” The change of energy communicated through your vocalics establishes empathy to build a connection with your partner. The person will have a feeling of being next to you, which will enhance your relationship fast.

Build Rapport

Rapport is being in sync with the person. It is the hidden key to make people feel connected to you. Establishing rapport ties in with mentioning the person’s name more often and compensating for a lack of body language via your voice because the two techniques build a connection that help the two of you get in sync.

Learning to build rapport over the phone is necessary if you want to build a strong relationship fast. Unfortunately, a complete guide to building rapport is far too complex to discuss in this article, yet the premise of it involves being like the person in as many ways as possible.

One particular characteristic of the person I highly advise you to match is their mood. Mood-matching helps you rapidly build a strong relationship and make someone fall in love with you.

To understand mood-matching, think back to a time when you were feeling unhappy and someone bounding with joy tried to cheer you up with their happiness. How did you feel afterwards? Most likely more annoyed! Their happiness did not relate to you because the two of you were at polarized emotional levels. The person was happy and you were sad.

You can better relate to people and build this “connection” I have been talking about when the two of you are communicating similar moods to one another. Mood is one of many communication factors you can match when talking to someone over the phone.

Rapport is slightly more difficult to create over the phone than in person because body language cannot be comprehended. You can, however, try to compensate for this with a 30% extra variance of energy in your voice.

When you combine all these tips to build a strong relationship over the phone with the ways to build attraction, you have the phone skills to make someone fall in love with you! Even better, these phone techniques are not limited to intimate love. You can apply these skills to potential clients, family members, and those annoying customers. The phone breaks geographic boundaries, but now you can break emotional boundaries.

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