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Debbie Mayo-Smith: Wow! Best email tip. Ever
9:30 AM Monday Jul 7, The New Zealand Herald
Too many emails takes up too much of your time and creates
too much stress.
How many emails does it take for you to feel bombarded?
100 a day? 35? 120?
No matter the volume, you are probably close to hating your
inbox. Too many emails taking up too much of your time, creating too much
stress. Right? To make matters worse you're so busy you don't even have time to
explore if there is a solution to your dilemma of too many incoming emails.
So let me help and explain how you can improve management,
response and even reduce your stress by using the Rules or Filters feature of
your email program.
The solution Rules/Filters gives you is having all the
emails you receive (or send) scanned and based upon your criteria, have an
action occur.
• Put emails in a folder
• Reply to certain incoming emails
• Delete certain incoming emails
• Forward on to someone else
• Combination of activities
• Reply to certain incoming emails
• Delete certain incoming emails
• Forward on to someone else
• Combination of activities
When you start using Rules not only personally, but
throughout the company and in conjunction with websites and call centres, the
accumulated increase in productivity, customer response and service and sales
can be extraordinary.
All email programs have Rules (webmail sometimes calls it
filters). From Mac Mail to Thunderbird to Gmail to Outlook.
Rules though, is just a word until you cleverly apply it to
solve business problems. Let me give you an example. I have a monthly
newsletter that goes out to over 15,000. Do you think everyone is at their
desk? No. When the newsletter goes out - in addition to my normal 150 - 180
emails a day I get between 300 to 500 out of office emails, mail delivery
errors as well as requests for speaking and book orders.
Do I need to go through the out of office replies? No! So
I've created a rule that I turn on when the newsletter goes out that looks for
quite a few permutations of the words Out of office and puts them in a folder.
That saves me the unnecessary activity of looking at and deleting 450 emails.
Here are a few ways I see this
little email function having a dramatic impact for you:
• Have repetitive emails go straight to folders
Items such as newsletters, rsvp's, mail delivery errors, out of office, voting, meeting acceptances, personal email.
Items such as newsletters, rsvp's, mail delivery errors, out of office, voting, meeting acceptances, personal email.
• Junk mail
Rules create another level of filtering for spam and junk mail by searching for words like V1agra; presidents daughter, the domain Nigeria. If your IT department sends screened emails to staff with the word spam added to the subject line, a rule can move it to a folder.
Rules create another level of filtering for spam and junk mail by searching for words like V1agra; presidents daughter, the domain Nigeria. If your IT department sends screened emails to staff with the word spam added to the subject line, a rule can move it to a folder.
• Mitigate high CC and BCC volume
Often these are not germane, or the most important item in an inbox. Having them corralled into a cc folder helps prioritise one's attention to more important items.
Often these are not germane, or the most important item in an inbox. Having them corralled into a cc folder helps prioritise one's attention to more important items.
• Delay sending out email
How many times have you forgot to 'attach' before hitting the send button? You can create a rule that delays the actual physical sending of the emails of a period of time like 5 or 10 minutes.
How many times have you forgot to 'attach' before hitting the send button? You can create a rule that delays the actual physical sending of the emails of a period of time like 5 or 10 minutes.
• Employee out sick or on vacation
A rule can forward emails that need actioning to someone else automatically.
A rule can forward emails that need actioning to someone else automatically.
• EA's multiple inboxes
Rules are of great benefit to Executive and Personal assistants, especially when working for several managers. They can create folders for each manager and have items such as travel, work to do, cc's sorted for them automatically.
Rules are of great benefit to Executive and Personal assistants, especially when working for several managers. They can create folders for each manager and have items such as travel, work to do, cc's sorted for them automatically.
• Standardise in-house in subject lines
FYI / FYA - for your information or action. Rules can then sort these out.
FYI / FYA - for your information or action. Rules can then sort these out.
• Web response / call centres
Can benefit greatly from the clever utilisation of rules.
Can benefit greatly from the clever utilisation of rules.
• Scan incoming emails for words or specific email addresses
and automatically forwarding to the correct person, sent to a folder to show
importance.
An automatic response can be triggered - one in general or specific answers to questions again based on the words.
An automatic response can be triggered - one in general or specific answers to questions again based on the words.
• Having management copied into the emails to ensure staff
are responding in a timely manner.
The bottom line is by cleverly looking for repetitive email
patterns and recognising which have low or high priority you can pay attention
to the right email at the right time and significantly remove manual handling
of many incoming emails. Translation. Less time. Less stress. Quicker response.
In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, "Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:
www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and PSG of Mercer County New Jersey.
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In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, "Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:
www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and PSG of Mercer County New Jersey.
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