We love our smartphones, don’t we….. they make our lives so much easier. Answering an email when we are on the bus saves us so much time. There are pitfalls though…. they seem create a sense of urgency that is sometimes unnecessary. While you are creating that one line smart phone message, put yourself in the shoes of the recipient for just a minute…. does your message come across as terse and rude?
I received a message recently that said “Can we talk about this later”, no salutation, no cheery ending and if I did not know the person well, I would have been offended. However, the tone of the email would have changed if he had added a few more words …” charging into a meeting now, can we talk about this later”. I would then have appreciated that he had got back to me in the middle of his busy day.
So…. add that those additional words. It is well worth the investment.
And remember that most email tools allow insertion of an automatic signature/ note that could include the words “Sent from my Blackberry”. This lets the recipient know that you sending the message on the run, and will probably buy you a little more latitude from them