Email is my primary means of communication for at least 40 hours a week. I’ve found this to be the most efficient way to communicate with all the different groups I work with. Over the years I’ve learned ways to make communicating in this manner effective. Emailing in this class is much less effective than it is for me at work and I started to think about some reasons why.
One of the reasons is that people do not always respond to an email that is sent to them. If you think about it, most people who use email for only personal use probably receive jokes or advertisements. This type of communication is something you would just read and delete; there’s really no need to respond. I think people get used to handling their email in this manner and just read and delete without responding. When you are communicating through email for work or for a reason that requires working together (such as our group assignments), it is essential that we respond to each other even if only to say, “thanks for the file.” When the people that you work with always respond, this eliminates the technological barrier of spam, firewalls, and wondering whether or not your message got through.
The other thing I’ve noticed that really helps is to give people timelines, let them know when they can expect things. For example, if I send out the draft PowerPoint for my group to review and one of the members won’t have time to review it for a couple of days, it’s helpful for them to respond, “Thanks for the file. I don’t have time to work on this tonight but you should hear back from me by Wednesday.”
To assist with successful communication through email, it’s also important to read the whole email and respond to ALL of it. Oftentimes, people read the first two lines, figure out what the email pertains to, and make a quick response. When that happens people fail to answer all of the questions in an email, requiring additional time and follow-up from both parties.
I have one last suggestion for successful communication via email: check it often. People should make every attempt to check their email daily. If people don’t get a fairly speedy response from others on email, they will resort to other means of communication. Happy emailing!
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3 comments:
Hi Christine,
I agree with you about emails being more effective to communicate with a group of people because people have different work hours and it is hard to call at a certain time. I also believe that it is common courtesy to reply and acknowledge the sender's email.
I have had friends who never reply to my email or they reply to half of the questions and the rest remains unknown.
I must admit that sometimes the mesagge might have not been received at all. For example, last Monday during our phone conference, I heard that the case's were emailed to each group member. Since I did not have it, I sent out three requests and you were the only one who replied. You said you will send it out again, and I waited and by Wednesday I was getting frustrated with the case since I did not have one. I explained the case to Aracely and she managed to send it to me. Out of two messages, I only received two. Later on, we figured out that one went straight into my inbox and one in my junk mail. Why? I don't know.
I am not making up excuses, but if it has happened to me, it can happen to anyone.
I completely understand. The world of spam is sometimes a mystery. This is what I mean that if everyone responds to each other, it helps us communicate more effectively. If I knew that you always responded to emails, I'd know that if you didn't reply when I sent the file that you probably didn't get it. You've actually been really good about responding. I'm just not always sure of your hours and when to expect a reply.
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