Four Email Bad Habits That Make People Dislike You

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Did your mother say this to you? Mine did, especially during my hypercritical middle school years.

“Don’t judge your colleagues by their email habits” isn’t a common saying because it would be impossible to do. We do judge our colleagues by their email habits. And some people’s email habits make you dislike them even if you’ve never met them. This happened a couple of years ago when I was emailing a new client, “Marta,” about the contract for a training program.

Here’s my email:

Hi, Marta —

Thanks for sending me the official contract; I received it last Friday. Do you want me to sign it now or just wait until we’ve chosen the dates for the training in Atlanta?

I’m looking forward to working with you —

Leslie

And here’s Marta’s reply:

Execute the contract and return the original. We can add an addendum with the individual courses in Atlanta if and when that becomes necessary.

Marta Watkins, Ph.D.

Well, I must admit that I judged that book by its cover. I hadn’t yet met Marta in person, but I felt her email showed her to be stuffy, curt, and all about her Ph.D. Her email style turned my sign-off sentence — I’m looking forward to working with you — into a lie.

Are Your Email Bad Habits Turning People Off?

These days, we sustain most work relationships via email. And with each email, our writing habits can deepen the relationship or put it on life support.

Here are four email bad habits that may put people off you, even if they haven’t met you.

1. Giving too much or too little information in your email signature. No Bible verses, inspirational quotes, or pictures of your “furbaby.” No clip art. All that stuff is too much. Including too little in your signature can be a problem too. Don’t withhold your phone number. We know you have a phone, and we may want to call you sometime. 

2. Not caring enough about your tone. No, you aren’t too busy to be friendly. No, your reader doesn’t prefer a 10-word email to a normal-length email that includes the word “thanks” somewhere in the body. No, using a greeting like “Hello” or “Good morning” shouldn’t be considered “wasting time on fluff.”

A few years ago, I had a colleague, “Jim,” whom I’d met once on Zoom to discuss which of three article titles we preferred. He seemed nice enough, but it was hard to get to know him during that two-minute exchange. After our meeting, he followed up with this email: Use #3. My reaction? “Hey, Jim, we’re scheduled to do 10 more projects together. Can I get a ‘Hi, Leslie’ or a ‘Talk to you soon’?”

If you want people to consider you friendly, use courtesies in your email. Don’t assume a “keyboard persona” and write email in a tone that’s not as nice as the tone you use when you talk to people on the phone or in person. 

3. Burying the lead. If you don’t get to the point at the beginning of your email, your readers must work harder to figure out what you want them to do or know. Making people work hard will not make you popular. Don’t start with background info; have the courage to start with your main point, your ask, your proposal. 

4. Getting gossipy with your CCs and BCCs. Get your email distribution list right. When you CC too many people, they wonder, “Why am I getting this?” or “Does she want me to do anything?” And if you CC too few people, you’ll leave important recipients out of the loop. 

Here are easy-to-follow guidelines about how to use BCC or CC:

• Don’t use BCC. If you want to share an email and you don’t want the first recipient to know you’re sharing it, just forward the email to the second recipient after you send it to the first one. BCC is too risky and too tattletale-ish.
• Use CC only when the recipient doesn’t need to do anything. If the people you’re emailing must do something in response, their names go in the “To” field. If you want people to know about the topic of the email, you can CC them.

Remember Marta? The chilly emailer with the Ph.D.? I eventually met her in person during those training sessions in Atlanta. Funny, smart, and great at brainstorming, she was way friendlier in person than she was in her emails. But that sounds like a backhanded compliment, doesn’t it? No one wants to be “surprisingly nicer” than their emails, do they?

Leslie O’Flahavan is a get-to-the point writer and an experienced, versatile writing instructor. E-WRITE owner since 1996, Leslie leads customized writing courses for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations.

Leslie helps the most stubborn, inexperienced, or word-phobic employees at your organization improve their writing skills, so they can do their jobs better. As a result of her work, Leslie’s clients improve their customer satisfaction ratings, reduce training cycles, improve productivity, and limit legal risk. Leslie is a LinkedIn Learning author of six writing courses including Writing in Plain Language, Technical Writing, and Writing for Social Media. She’s the cohost of the monthly LinkedIn Live broadcast “Fix This Writing!”

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