Email Etiquette

Why It Matters?

Outside of sessions and phone calls, the vast majority of communication with our clients is done by email. Although email has been ubiquitous for the last 10+ years, it's still new to our society as a medium. Improper use of email creates unexpected opportunities for misunderstandings, frustrations, bad feelings, loss of trust and other unintended negative results.

Worse yet: due to the asynchronous nature of email, we are not immediately aware of the negative effects our written communications (or lack thereof!) have on the people with whom we are communicating which makes it more challenging to be aware of and correct in a timely fashion.

The two main issues that create the most opportunity for error are Email Tone and Response Times. Having a good handle on these will cover 90%+ of email problems so please read this page carefully and take it to heart.

It’s extremely important that our email communication is of the highest quality and facilitates easy, clear, and positive interaction with the people with whom we work.

Email Tone

Email tone is the most important - and most difficult - to get right.

It is a well known fact that the majority of person-to-person communication is relayed by tone (of voice), followed by body language... followed by the actual words we use. When speaking by phone, even if we can't see the other party (and they can't see us), we can very quickly tell if something we've said has upset them based on the tone of their response. More importantly, they can hear the tone in which we are delivering the message. Are we angry or calm? Cold or warm? Accusative or conciliatory? Exited or apathetic?

Email throws all of that information out and leaves us only with words.

When you write, you probably imagine yourself speaking with a specific (likely positive) tone. The person reading your emails will not hear that (positive) tone, and will instead infer your tone from the text and timing of your email.

What will they infer?

Negative By Default

Based on my own personal experience, as well extensive published research, the most critical thing to understand about email tone is this:

inferred email tone is negative by default.

That is, unless we explicitly - with words - create a positive tone in the message, our message is likely to be interpreted in a negative manner.

• Emails that are short will be interpreted as rude and disinterested. "This person doesn't have enough time for me."
• Emails that are not warm/friendly will often be interpreted as cold/unfriendly.
• Emails that are not enthusiastic will be interpreted as apathetic.
• Emails that don't show emotion will be interpreted as having no emotion.
• Emails that don't use soft language will be interpreted as hard or hostile, especially if they contain requests.
• Emails that don't overtly take responsibility for issues will be interpreted as defensive/corporate.
• etc.

Although we may not intend these interpretations, it is up to us as service professionals to effectively communicate our intentions.

What to do?

Although "brevity is the soul of wit", brevity is not the soul of effective email communication.

Instead, use more words. In a world with limited attention, more words show more attention, more care, and more investment. Tutors who communicate more verbosely (and more clearly and positively) tend to have the happiest clients, retain clients the longest, and get paid the most. Here are some specific tips:

Show Emotions!

Use words to clearly describe what you would like your email recipients to know about the mood of your communication.

Are you excited to work with their child? Curious to learn more about the student in your first phone call? Looking forward to your first session? Grateful for the opportunity? Happy about how much progress the student is making? Let them know!

Use pleasantries

Emails that lack "pleasantries" tend to come off as cold and corporate.

You may not really care about how your recipient is doing today but emails will sound better if they:

• start with a variation of "How are you?" or "I hope you are doing well"
• end with "I hope you and your family have a great [day/week/vacation/holiday/whatever]!"

Be extra apologetic / empathic

When any client issues come up, it's helpful to be extra apologetic/empathetic when communicating via email, even when the situation is not really "your fault" in any meaningful way. You can try starting your emails with something like:

"Dear <Client>, I'm so sorry that I won't be able to make our meeting because …"

"Sorry", in an email context, doesn't necessarily mean that you've done something terrible and are asking for forgiveness. Instead, if you don't very clearly say "sorry" it can often be seen as avoiding responsibility - even if that's not what you intend!

Check for tone before sending

A good habit to get into is to check for tone before sending emails to clients.

Try to imagine how they might interpret your message if they don't know what you intend. Could the message be interpreted negatively? If so.. there's a strong chance it will be!

Is the message pretty neutral? Oops - that might be interpreted negatively (cold/impersonal) as well!

At first, you might think that all your messages "look fine". If that's the case, try leaving an email for a few hours and take a look at it later. You'll be surprised at how differently it reads! With time and practice you'll get much better and faster at this, to the point that it'll become nearly automatic.

Response Time

Imagine if there was a person in front of you, and you were asking them about something that was important and time-sensitive to you. Imagine now if this person ignored your query and responded casually 10, 20.. 30 minutes later. The more important your question, the more urgent your query, the longer longer the delay.. the more uncomfortable, stressed, and confused you would probably feel.

Most us have many clients and many priorities in life. For our clients, however, their kids are their top priority, and when they write to us it's usually important, and at least somewhat time sensitive.

Because of that, we suggest that tutors respond to all client emails within 1 day. In general, the sooner you respond the better.

If You Can't Respond in a Timely Manner

We fully understand that healthy boundaries between "life" and "work" are key to long term happiness and well being. Barring some extremely rare emergency, we do not expect you to respond to company emails over weekends, holidays, vacations... etc.

Unfortunately, in the age of iPhones and ubiquitous internet, your clients - and especially new clients - will not always be as understanding.

If a client writes to you on a Friday afternoon and doesn't hear back from you over the weekend through Monday or Tuesday (lets say there is a holiday), they will be irritated and they will lose trust. Although it may have only been 1 or 2 business days for you, clients don't think in business days. Instead, it was 3 or 4 days of their real life that they spent waiting for your response.

As a compromise, we suggest the following strategy: Create a set of canned responses that you send to clients when you can't get back to them quickly. Something like:

"Thanks so much for reaching out! I'm away from my PC this weekend, but I'll respond to you in detail first thing next week"

This is even more important for new clients especially when responding to Tutor Introductions. You can send something like this:

"Thanks so much for the introduction! I'm away for the weekend and haven't nailed down my schedule for next week, but I'll get back to you first thing next week with some options for when to talk. Looking forward to chatting with you about <student>!"

These brief, mostly canned messages that take moments to send will make a huge difference in how your clients perceive you, and in the trust they have in you, and in us.

If You Don't Have an Answer Right Away

Some emails might not require an immediate response, or you may not know the answer right away, and it might take some time (a few days or more) to have a clear or definitive answer.

Many choose to wait to respond until they are able to give said definitive answer, but I personally believe this to be a mistake. Any delay in response to something important to the other party signals a lack of interest, investment, and urgency - and can creates a sense of confusion and uncertainty, which over time time erodes trust.

If you find yourself in this situation, what we instead suggest you do is to answer promptly to acknowledge receipt of the email, and to let the other party know that you will provide the answer at some specific time in the future. For example:

“Thanks for asking! It’ll take me a couple of days to figure this out, so I’m going to follow up with you [in a few days|next week|next month|etc]”

The worst thing you can do in email communications is to ignore emails.