To Call or to E-Mail? That Is the Question

Although I teach writing skills across the United States, one of the greatest time-wasters I see is the quantity of e-mail begging for response. The problem? In most cases, the e-mail need not have been sent. A phone call would have done the job nicely.

In the same way there are times when it helps to deliver a message in person rather than by tweet, there are times in which a phone call is more appropriate and more efficient than an e-mail.

Send e-mails when you wish to document something, but remember that not every action you take requires a paper trail. Are you documenting actions to please a superior? A client? Or are you doing it out of fear -– to assure your boss that you are spending your time wisely.

Send an e-mail as a quick way of complimenting colleagues on a job well done or to thank them for a favor received. This is a nice, low-key way of acknowledging a colleague where a phone call might carry with it an almost phony level of corporate compassion.

An e-mail is helpful when you are struggling to reach someone by phone. Many people are reluctant to make a call but are comfortable with the less personal e-mail to respond to an inquiry.

The tricky thing about e-mail is how to use it properly to either inform or persuade someone to help you accomplish your own goals. An impatient e-mailer may “lose it” and START USING ALL CAPS AND EVEN THROW IN A FEW EXCLAMATION POINTS FOR GOOD MEASURE!!!!

Demanding a response is a sure-fire way of assuring that you won’t get one. Those caps are the scud missiles of business. Thousands of vendors are kept on the hook because the middle manager being dealt with is “waiting” for a response from top management.

I’ll bet if that middle manager’s livelihood depended upon getting a quick response, he or she would be far less passive. A phone call, though a trifle confrontational, can blast through the “no news is no news” feeling that your e-mail to the bosses has completely slipped off their radar.

With snail mail, we might have cooled off before taking our angry message to the mail box; we now can get “closure” on our righteous anger in a split second by just hitting the SEND button, the weapon of mass destruction available to us all.

Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian of redneck humor, starts many of his jokes with the phrase, “You know you’re a redneck if …” I would say that “You know you shouldn’t e-mail when …

• You are piggybacking on the e-mails of more than three other people, each with an agenda of his own.
• You can’t either get to the point or get the reader’s attention in the first screen
• You are sending a message critical of one or two people’s behavior to “innocent people” who happen to be on your distribution list.

A colleague shared this with me: “One of my contacts is involved in auditing insurance programs and a recent project necessitated him asking for technical information from the client’s broker.

“The broker e-mailed the insurer but the consultant received a tracked copy of the broker’s email saying ‘XYZ has got his snout involved with this client…'”

If ever proof is needed to be careful with comments in an email this is it. Not only was this e-mail personal and disrespectful it created unintended friction and rebounded on the broker’s own reputation.

• You feel a strong urge to share a new joke, the details of a spouse’s betrayal, uncensored views of a politician, or the latest YouTube video of a heart warming rendition of “Do-Re-Me” involving more than 200 dancers performing in the Antwerp train station.
• You don’t have the time or inclination to carefully proofread every word you’ve written.
• The person you are e-mailing sits a few desks away or if you are going to be having lunch with him or her in about 10 minutes.
• You know your e-mails can be accessed by a judge and jury yet you feel an irresistible Mel-Gibson-like rage toward a client or attorney bubbling up.

If you want to walk a tightrope between being a pest and an assertive answer-seeker, you can always write an e-mail trying to ask when may be an appropriate time for you to call that beleaguered-and-non-communicative boss who may have forgotten that you are awaiting a response.

If the average person in a claims department receives, conservatively, 10,000 business e-mails a year, cutting that figure by at least 30 percent may translate to saving at least one full week a year—every year.

Blake, director of the Communication Workshop, offers claims writing seminars and webinars, including the Effective E-Mail webinar, at insurance companies across the United States, Canada, and the UK. Web site: www.writingworkshop.com.