Who Should You To: or Cc: ?

When do you use the To: field or the Cc: field?  There really are no hard and fast rules. One of the words I use most here on this site is discretion — and when to use the To: field vs. the Cc: field is all about discretion and the circumstances at hand.

As a general guideline, use the To: field if you want to address several contacts for the same reason as a group, while encouraging their input. If you are listed in the To: field know that your input is being sought.

The Cc: field is generally used to keep people in the loop (FYI) with no expectation of a reply being required. That is unless you are the one who is Cc:’d and have something important to add to the conversation that needs to be pointed out. In that case reply only to the Sender and do NOT hit Reply to All.

One concern stressed by those who e-mail me is the unfortunate situation of having an e-mail conversation with one party who then takes the liberty to Cc: others on their reply or mid-way through the conversation. For example two managers dicussing their respective team’s responsiblities. One can see how when one manager chooses to Cc: the other manager’s staff about their opinion on the situation can be perceived as a breach of confidentiality or encroaching on the other manager’s authority.

This is one of those situations where discretion is even more important. Be sure the other party doesn’t have an expectation that what you are discussing is between the two of you. It is the sign of a true professional to know intuitively when that is the case.

To arbitrarily bring others into a private conversation when the person on the other side may not agree with that choice can cause misunderstandings and cause them to not trust that they can in fact have candid communications with you.

One thing is clear — you should never play politics with these fields. Doing so will never be a successful strategy and can lend to you being perceived as trivial and/or unprofessional.

The bottom line?

Use the To: field for those who you desire to have a conversation with and want to encourage their input.

The Cc: field is best used in new conversations and is used to FYI without an expectation of a reply or additional input. Now here’s the important part — if you need to inform others about the topic at hand — discuss this first with those already involved and start a new e-mail that includes all involved.

By keeping these tips in mind you’ll be known as a courteous and efficient communicator and more importantly someone others can bank on to use their discretion when needed.

Don’t Jump to Conclusions in Your Business E-mail

E-mail makes it so much easier to boldly accuse or jump to incorrect conclusions. I receive several e-mails every day containing comments or claims that I know the very same folks would not say to my face or that stem from them making an assumption that is not based on anything I actually did or said.

Being behind these screens makes it so much easier to type what may not be true or nice because you don’t have that eye contact or person sitting in front of you to then have to deal with their reaction. And almost everyone reading this post can admit at some time mistakenly reading into an e-mail what was not there. With business e-mail communications, responding with accusations or assumptions can impact your reputation and perception of professionalism.

By jumping to conclusions and then because of the ease of typing things you wouldn’t normally say if face-to-face, ability to Cc: the boss or BCc: coworkers with just a click, don’t communicate in a manner that you would not appreciate if done to you. At the same time the onus is on each of us to ensure that our intent and tone are crystal clear so there is the least amount of room for any assumptions to be made.

There are so many things going on in the background that the majority of e-mailers are not aware of that can cause delayed e-mails or lack of response. Or someone may be in a hurry and type off a quick response that then comes off as terse and vague. Because you perceive an attitude that may not be there or that something is not happening as quickly or the way you desire, doesn’t necessarily make it so.

How’s this? While you are assuming, why not also assume that you do not know all the details or criteria that could be affecting a situation and ask for an explanation in a kind and courteous way?

If I don’t receive responses to my inquiries, I don’t assume why or send accusations or “eTattle” to the higher-ups, rather I send a kind follow up confirming if the original request was received and/or if everything on the other side is O.K.

If an e-mail is terse or rude, I respond back with the courtesy not offered to me to set an example of how professionals communicate with e-mail.

Jumping to conclusions many times only serves to expose your lack of knowledge, understanding or ability to act as a true professional in any given situation. I’m sure you’ll agree that is not a good approach in any business situation.

E for E-mail Etiquette and Efficiency

The fact is that integrating solid e-mail etiquette skills in your day to day business e-mail activities will help to make you a more efficient communicator. Those who you e-mail regularly will appreciate these efforts as you will help to make doing business with you easier and them more efficient as well.

I thought about this today as I was answering my overflowing inbox where I found e-mails that made replying difficult, requests that had already been answered asking where my answers were and inquiries that were vague at best. This caused me to have to dig out my previous replies and resend them to the same individuals, ask questions for information to better clarify the request so I could answer with confidence added with the chore of having to weed through previous back and forth to figure out what was new that I was supposed to respond to.

These type of e-mails took more of my time to have to respond to and made me inefficient. As is usually the case, I thought “this will make a great topic for Business E-mail Etiquette!” Here are the issues that I took note of today that made both sides spend more time than necessary with their e-mail communications — all of which can easily be resolved with minuscule effort.

1. Before responding to a e-mail, order your e-mails by Sender. This will help you see any subsequent e-mails on the same topic that you can then easily combine into just one e-mail reply. Minimizing the number of e-mails is a benefit to everyone involved.
2. On that same note, consolidate your thoughts and put them in one e-mail using a bulleted list as I am doing here. Sending numerous e-mails with just one thought, concern or question takes unnecessary time for the Sender to send and the Recipient to have to weed through.
3. Down-editing your replies is the sign of a tech savvy skilled communicator. Always remove what is no longer necessary to the conversation. Only leave what you are specifically replying to so the person on the other side knows what your comments correspond to. To have to review an entire email looking for the one spot where you inserted a “no” as your answer reflects a lack of concern for the time of the person you are communicating with.
4. Before assuming that a request was not acknowledged or processed, check your inbox, trash or spam folders to make sure that you did not in fact receive the desired response or information before you send off an accusatory follow-up. Add important contacts to your address book or whitelist to ensure your contact’s e-mails can get through any filtering your software may have in place.
5. When making an request, be sure to do your best to include all the possible information the other side will need to assist you. The more time you take to provide all the necessary details and information that the other side will need to respond to your request, the faster you will receive the response you desire.

These are just the 5 things that stuck out today that caused me lost time and efficiency. Clearly Business E-mail Etiquette serves to assist all involved in using the least amount of time tapping away at these keyboards thereby freeing us all up to have more time to do our jobs and run our businesses.

What can those you communicate with do to help make you more efficient?

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