We all rely a lot on email for communication, right? However, most of us haven’t had any proper professional training when it comes to communication skills via email. Unfortunately, this leads many of us to have poor professional communication skills. However, removing three specific words from your emails will significantly improve the quality of your communication and as a bonus; you won’t sound rude in your emails!
1. Actually
Chief Happiness Officer at Buffer, Carolyn Kopprasch, has written a fantastic blog post on the word. Generally, when we make use of the word ‘actually’ during our emails; it is intended for correcting someone. However, there are always better responses to choose from such as definitely, got it, I see, great point, understandable, and makes sense.
What’s the outcome of using these alternatives? You will sound more friendly and respectful rather than coming off as a snobbish person based on your email.
2. Sorry
The word sorry is used, somewhat over-used, so casually that it has lost its meaning. That is why when you do make use of the word sorry; it almost never incites any actually heartfelt sentiments. That is why using alternatives such as I apologize, you’re right, I understand why you are upset, and going forward I will…, will help the other person know that you actually do mean what you are saying. It adds more weight to your apology if you also include an action plan to avoid something similar of the sort from happening again in the future.
3. Me
When you use me in your email, the message that is being conveyed is that you are focused internally rather than working on how you can help the people that you are interacting with on a daily basis. Removing the iterations of me, myself, and I from your email and replacing them with words such as you, us, we, our company, the team, and our department, will help you incite the feeling of teamwork and thus help you focus on how you are benefitting the mission of the company and the company as a whole.
So try avoiding these three keywords from your emails and see how your emails become more polite and welcoming!