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Published August 11th, 2016 by

8 Ways to Keep You Sane While Managing Your Emails

Communication, as with any situation, is vital among all relationships, whether in humans or animals alike. Early humans have started to develop different ways to communicate with each other out of necessity. And with a more complex world we are in, people are still thinking and innovating more ways to achieve better and more efficient means of communicating.

8 Ways to Keep You Sane While Managing Your Emails

Effective Business Communication

In the business, communication is important in order to have common ground to lay a foundation on for its goals, and for its client base to settle. It is a means for your employees to express their ideas and talents in order to make a significant contribution to the business. It is also an important gateway to connect with clients, and them to the business. Freedom and convenience in communication can open a lot of doors for more effective delivery of products and services, and for achieving the goals set by the business.

In the business, all communication channels are vital to support most processes, management systems, and relationships in order to have a smooth flow of work among the organization. It is composed of both verbal and nonverbal types of communication, and also with traditional and electronic methods. Varying the business communication methods and access channels not only expand its visibility in the market, but also done to understand which works best for whom (customers). Barriers to communication are also important to know and address accordingly, which,if not, can have a negative impact on the way your business thrive.

Effective business communication can also decrease the likelihood of problems and misunderstandings to arise in the business. It can bring transparency and increased accountability for all processes, thus promoting relationships that are built on trust, which is also beneficial in creating a loyal client base.

Through the continuous advancements of technology in the field of communications, most businesses nowadays are utilizing electronic communication systems. Among the earliest forms of electronic communication tools are email, remote collaboration, and interactive business tools. All of these were just subjected to some upgrades as technology grows and expands, but still remain effective to use until today.

Emails in a Business Setting

As one of the earliest form of nonverbal communication used in businesses, the email remains to be one of the top workplace tools today, alongside the internet. According to a study by the Pew Research Center in 2014, 61% of the surveyed businesses mentioned the email as a very valuable productivity tool to their jobs, alongside with the internet which came in second place, at 54%.

Email is a convenient method of correspondence among businesses and their associates, which uses the internet as its fast and reliable gateway for message exchange. The use of emails in businesses introduce many benefits and advantages over other means of electronic communication like:

  1. Emails are easy to create and send.

Composing messages is faster using emails, since we are dealing with user friendly digital computer applications. Sending them is also a breeze, with just one click of a button.

  1. Emails leave both paper and electronic trail for better tracking.

Even though emails live in the digital world, it is also possible to print copies of it, which can be effective in establishing both paper and electronic trails. But message tracking is more viable and fast using email. Email tracking softwares can also inform the sender if the message has been received, and if the attachments are opened already.

  1. Emails can receive rapid response.

Responding can also be quicker like with how messages were composed and sent. With email management tools, it is easier to view conversational messages using one link. This is important to easily locate an email from a specific sender.

  1. Using an email is a faster way to inform groups of people at once.

Sending group emails, is an efficient way of communicating with a collaborative team with the same message content. This can be beneficial when getting all members to a meeting seems impossible at the moment.

  1. Email is capable of adding attachments to the message.

The capability of including attachments is also one of the key advantages of using emails. The documents attached can be easily viewed or printed by the recipient or recipients, minimizing the time it takes for the sender to make multiple copies for each.

  1. Using an email can promote excellent customer service.

According to a survey, about 60% of customers prefer to use email to raise their questions to a business about a product or service it is offering. Even though the figure states the popularity of using emails in delivering excellent customer service, it will still boil down to the manner of execution and response if the means are effective or not.

  1. Emails can break geographical barriers.

The internet is an expansive public network, which can disseminate information across all parts of the world through the use of computer technology. Utilizing its vast reach can make emails faster to reach its destination, regardless of where its recipient is and without the delay caused by travel time.

  1. Emails can be used as a targeted marketing strategy.

Email marketing is one of the proven effective marketing strategies to use nowadays. With the use of other business tools, emails can be optimized to be more targeted and engaging, depending on the customer’s preferences.

  1. Deploying emails are relatively lower in cost.

Using email is relatively low in cost, which is just needs a desktop, an email application software and an internet connection. Costs of ink, paper, printing equipment, courier services and travel expenses are eliminated, making it a cost effective method of deploying messages or documents in the business.

Sane Practices in Email Management

The mantra over the role of email in businesses should be that anybody creates email, and every email can be a valuable piece of evidence, or will be an important data for future use. As such, business emails should be stored or retained as long as the system can hold everything. But to be effective for its purpose, it should be effectively managed as well.

Email records management can be critical, when not done properly, to employee efficiency and disaster recovery. Improper use of email can also impact the company’s image with other businesses, which is caused by misunderstood words or information. Emails in businesses should also be handled according to the compliance, standards, rules and regulations concerning the use of intellectual property and electronic documents.

An email management system should be accompanied with sane practices that must be observed at all times. This is done to be able to handle large volumes of emails more effectively and efficiently, and to reap its full benefits for the business.

  1. Identify the problem

This should be the first thing to answer upfront before beginning to deploy any solution or tool in a business. As with email management, it is important that a business knows what kind of emails it receive and process everyday, its volume, and how relevant it is, as well as its impact, to the business operations. Understanding the scope of the problem can help narrow down your solution choices, and will target only what is lacking or deficient, for a more effective solution.

  1. Establish a business case

Building a business case means that all possible scenarios that might be needing email references should be anticipated beforehand, in order to make the necessary preparations. All important aspects of email management and email tracking should be optimized so that it can be effective when the need arises anytime.

In a broader perspective, emails can be crucial to a business when it is needed on a legal basis. There are actual and high profile court cases that involved huge amounts of money as settlements and payment for damages just because the company failed to give a substantial form of evidence to support their defense, because of missing or misfiled emails.

  1. Build a strong email archiving system

Having a strong and efficient email archiving system can make tracking and searching emails faster to execute. Emails should be appropriately sorted out in order to make better identification of what are those that are relevant to the purpose of the search.

  1. Deploy an email zoning management system

Categorizing emails may be a strong point in making an effective management system. It works by placing each email into one of the three categories:

  1. Zone 1 includes emails that will be automatically cleared from the inbox within a certain period, unless it was indicated otherwise.
  2. Zone 2 includes emails (and its attachments) that is believed to have a corporate value for the business, but haven’t been acknowledged just yet. A longer period of retention is applied to emails in zone 2, in order to make the necessary review of its final category.
  3. Zone 3 holds the emails (including attachments) that have a definite value and should be regarded with care and proper management and handling.

The above mentioned zoning strategy can be modified according to what suites your business better, and can serve as a guide, or as is it is.

  1. Leverage your existing business tool suite

It is most likely that your business has already adopted a number of software or business tools, which more often than note, come from a single vendor. Softwares that can be integrated with each other can make more effective email management, especially that which concerns communications and electronic documents. Email records can be easily obtained, consolidated and categorized with this kind of existing management structure.

  1. Build your email management system out of a comfortable and familiar environment.

It is wise to invest in a powerful business tool, only to know later that it isn’t user friendly after all. Engaging your employees to embrace change may require you to get a tool that works with familiar and comfortable environment. This way, it will be easier to adopt the system and to encourage its full utilization in the business.

  1. Effective content tagging

Email tagging is like putting on a label for each email, which suggests what it is all about as well as its contents. This will make it more useful in making searches, especially when the system is made automated, in order to push its usability and effectiveness further.

  1. Get an email management tool

Getting an email management tool; whether an email management software, an email tracking software, or both, can make a significant impact on how your business deals with huge volumes of emails in the long run.

An email tracker software can monitor your emails, which follows its journey as it reach its intended recipient. The reports it returns can serve as the basis for measuring the efficiency of the email campaign. A top email tracking software can also utilize these reports and support it with metrics.

An efficient records management system will be more effective if will be partnered by a powerful technology based email management tool, which can maximize the use of emails for your business’ benefit.

To know more about the best practices in tracking your business emails using technology based tools, click on these reviews of email tracking software.

Trevor Price

Trevor Price helps small businesses leverage mobile technology to reach their audience and extend their capabilities in delivery, information, and tracking.

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