Email etiquette 1: Greetings
Used to be that business letters were simple. You (or your secretary) typed them on your manual typewriter, beginning “Dear Sir,” and followed a simple formula as laid out in various handbooks of business communications.
Email’s less formal, we all know that. And in completely informal situations, we all know how to use it just fine. Sure, there’s the odd mailing list flamewar or whatever, but mostly we just bash out the text and hit send and don’t think twice.
The problems start when one has to use email for more formal communications in the workplace, especially because when this happens it usually means we’re talking to non-geeks, who speak another language and will probably go non-linear if we do something they consider wrong.
So, today’s subject is the most prominent and perhaps the least understood element of email etiquette: greetings.
There are almost no circumstances under which “Dear Sir” is the correct opening for an email. The only exception I can think of, in fact, is if you are the widow of a Nigerian businessman. Chances are that “Dear Sir” is in everyone’s Bayesian filters by now as a spam indicator.
In general, your choices (in approximate descending order of formality) are:
- “Dear $TITLE $SURNAME”
- “Dear $FIRSTNAME”
- “Hi $FIRSTNAME”
- “$FIRSTNAME”
- “Hi” (and variants)
- nothing
Taking them in order:
Dear $TITLE $SURNAME: You should use title and surname if you are dealing with someone who expects to be addressed in such a way. This includes senior academics and people in management at conservative companies such as banks. If you use this form of address, the rest of your email should be similarly formal, as if you were writing a letter on paper. If you need to write formally to someone and don’t know their name, you should seek it out first. Do some research — it shouldn’t be that hard to google them or send an initial email to an enquiries address asking who you should talk to. Be very sure you get the title correct. I can’t count the number of times I’ve received email addressed to “Mr Robert” (or, indeed, “Mr Kirrily”) instead of Ms Robert, and I know that those who use “Dr” can sometimes be touchy about it, too.
Dear $FIRSTNAME: This is a bit of an odd one. It seems sort of intimate to be writing “Dear Bob” to someone you work with. I’d suggest avoiding it.
Hi $FIRSTNAME: This is my preference for most business communications, where the businesses in question have informal corporate cultures, as most geek workplaces do. For instance, if writing to someone in another department at your organisation, or someone you met at a conference, this is a good opening. The “Hi” covers your basic politeness requirement without sounding excessively formal.
$FIRSTNAME: Not bad for general purpose use, but only with those you already know. Can sound a little abrupt. Best to use it on short, to-the-point emails: “Chris, can you send me a copy of that code we were looking at on Friday?”
Hi (and variants): This is my pick for email you’re sending to a group of people, or when you don’t know the name of the recipient. Good for informal enquiries: “Hi, I was looking at your website and wondered if you could provide me with more information about…” When sending email to a group of people, you can write, “Hi folks, I just wanted to contact you all about the BoF session we talked about…” (A word of warning: avoid “Hi guys” unless all your recipients are male; it’s not a dire faux pas, especially in the geek world where, but there are better choices.) Also not a bad pick for informal email which, in more formal situations, might begin “Dear Sir/Madam” or “To whom it may concern.” In other words, you can use it for job applications (if you know that the company to which you’re applying has a casual corporate culture), emails to HR or finance within your organisation, etc.
Nothing: Another good general purpose one, and the most common on mailing lists and in ongoing email conversations. Just launch into the subject under discussion, with no greeting. Best with people you already know, and when the subject isn’t at all touchy. If you’re about to say something controversial, it doesn’t hurt to start off with “Hi” to soften them up a little first.
All of the above is subject to squishiness depending on who you’re emailing and their preferred level of formality. The recipient’s expected level of formality is the important one. Expectations vary depending on the corporate culture, geographical location, and even age of the recipient. When in doubt, be a little more polite or formal that you would usually be, but not more than one step more formal. And try not to sound like a 419 spammer.
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The greeting can tell so much about the person.
I’ve been trying to hire a programmer for a while, and my HR director forwards anything in the HR@companyname mailbox that looks like a programmer. This cover letter started “Dear Mr. HR Manager.” When I pointed it out, Debbie was amused that she’d switched genders. I was less amused because I knew right there that he was not right for the team. I literally didn’t need to read any further.
“But that’s not fair, that’s just one little thing!” I hear someone saying. That’s life. In this case, I was able to immediately exclude the candidate not because I was offended that he would assume the HR director was a man, but rather that he was naive, inexperienced or just plain dumb enough to not know that others very well may have been offended. That’s not someone I want in my department.
Info gleaned from working in admin on an academic journal:
An interesting problem with Dear $TITLE $SURNAME and senior academics is establishing the value of $TITLE.
In North America, it’s not so bad. If they’re at a university, they’re Professor, if they’re not (in a commercial research lab) they’re Doctor. In other places, where Professor and related titles are a mark of high seniority it’s tougher and bad to get wrong, although at least there isn’t the problem of finding out the gender of the recipient, their marital status, and whether or not their marital status affects their title like there is with Mr/Ms/Miss/Mrs.
The obvious answer is “it’s on their webpage.” There are a number of problems with this. A surprising number of them just have “hi, I’m James Brown, I’m a researcher at Ohio State!” on their pages. Academics in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America are far far less likely to have webpages at all (even in their native language): these are exactly the areas where I don’t know the title conventions; and academic papers don’t carry titles on them, just affiliations. Another problem that occasionally crops up when you have a name and a field and not much else is having two researchers in related or identical fields with related or identical names!
The reason it was so important in this particular case was that we were asking them to review papers, which is a favour. The amount of Google-stalking of prospective reviewers I had to do was really huge.
(An interesting side-note was that when I got responses from North America or Western Europe, I inevitably got “Dear Ms G” or much more commonly “Dear Mary” or “Hi Mary”. They would almost always finish the mail with “Ben” or “Sandra” or “Rebecca”. From other continents I was much more likely to get “Dear Dr G” — an interesting view on the kind of people they thought would be doing that kind of role.)
Greetings,
When I was in college, my favorite professor (who taught assembly language and theory of automata) would always walk in to class and simply say, “Greetings”. What was interesting is that he would also do this in email correspondence. That stuck on me, and now if I’m sending to a group of people or don’t know how formal to be or I don’t know who’s receiving it on the other end, I simply state “Greetings,” at the beginning of the email.
A particular favourite of mine for writing to mailinglists or the like is “Hi all,” which I find more reserved and modest than “Hi folks.” The latter is something I might use to address a known group of people all of whom I know personally.
As an old fashioned Brit I find the use of “Hi” a little intrusive and informal. I prefer the respectful, yet still friendly, “Hello”. Good morning/afternoon/evening ‘feels’ pleasant to read.
Hi,
I googled: email etiquette hi
And found this informative page. I usually start out work emails with “Hi Firstname”. Then on reply threads I skip all greetings and cut to the chase. But when the reply has some people in the CC field, I feel it necessary to address a particular person. “Firstname”, this time without the “Hi” I originally had. I was concerned, might people think I’m changing my tone? I have noticed most non geeks either use the “Hi” or never use “Hi”, and some non geeks use the “Hi” each and every time. Even if its just you and them replying back and forth and I’m skipping the greeting, they still say “Hi” every time.
I have to admit, I fing getting an email that starts with just my name to be rude, and abrupt. With work related emails, it makes me feel like I’m being commmanded to do something, rather than being asked. When it comes from friends it makes me feel like I’m being slapped in the face…it’s inappropriately clinical and cold.
Why is it out of vogue to just slip a simple ‘Hi’ or a ‘Hello’ in front of the recipients name?
“greeting used when u do not know the marital status of an e-mail receipeint” thats how i ended up here. in my case it is rather impossible to find out whether or not my receipeint is married, without giving the impression i am interested. so i had to settle with the lesser of two crimes, Hi