E-Mail 101: Back to Basics

E-Mail 101: Back to Basics

By examining their e-mail practices, internal auditors can ensure appropriateness, efficiency, and accuracy before pressing send.

ALLISON CAIN
EDITOR

E-mail has come a long way since the first message sent in 1971 between two computers belonging to the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency. According to August 2008 statistics from The Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, e-mail users send a staggering 183 billion messages per day.

Many of those e-mails are sent by internal auditors during the course of the business day. Considering this, internal auditors should examine their e-mail practices to ensure appropriateness, efficiency, and accuracy. By determining whether e-mail is the appropriate way to communicate and then focusing on how to best communicate through e-mail, internal auditors can be confident that their message will be well-received.

E-mail Etiquette

About.com offers the following 10 tips on e-mail etiquette:

  • Think twice before sending an e-mail.
  • Do not default to Reply All.
  • Keep e-mails short.
  • Properly format your e-mail replies.
  • Clean up e-mails before forwarding them.
  • When in doubt, send Plain Text e-mail rather than HTML.
  • Don't forward hoaxes.
  • Use antivirus software and keep it updated.
  • Write perfect subject lines.
  • Let people know their e-mail has been received.

TO E-MAIL OR NOT TO E-MAIL — ASK THE QUESTION

Before auditors can evaluate how to best craft an e-mail, it's important to decide if e-mail is the right medium of communication. When contemplating sending a message, keep in mind e-mail:

  • Provides a searchable record. This can be a benefit or a drawback. An example is the partner at Arthur Andersen who deleted e-mails during the Enron scandal, prior to records being subpoenaed by the courts. Basically, the internal auditor who needs to share sensitive information should think twice about doing so with an e-mail.
  • Is easily forwarded. Information, sensitive or not, can be forwarded to inappropriate parties, accidentally or otherwise. According to the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, anyone sent an e-mail alleging wrongdoing or potentially illegal behavior is responsible for reporting the information, at the very least.
  • Allows words to be changed. By attaching a PDF, internal auditors can avoid word changing to an extent, but there is still a risk.
  • Encourages distracting, unnecessary exchanges. An e-mail with a subject line resembling Fw: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: is a good indication of an unnecessary e-mail exchange, which decreases productivity.
  • Is an interruption. For those people who keep their e-mail program open all day or are constantly reachable via a handheld device, every e-mail is a distraction and an interruption.

If after considering these five points and deciding that e-mail is the best way to share the information, the next task is writing a message that will get read.

E-MAIL DISSECTED

According to David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, authors of Send: The Essential Guide to E-mail for Office and Home, people "are so often focused on what they want to say in an e-mail that they give too little thought to the mechanics." There are three main components of every e-mail: The To/Cc/Bcc fields, the subject line, and the message body. Although these components are fairly self-explanatory, they often are misused and warrant further examination.

To/Cc/Bcc
These are the fields that will get an e-mail where it needs to go. As simple as the To field is to use, mistakes are still made — including too many people, sending an inappropriate request to an important contact, listing a contact who does not belong there, and so on. As a rule of thumb:

  • Don't include too many people.
  • Don't add names of people who only need to be kept in the loop.
  • Use the appropriate address (e.g., work versus personal).

The Cc, or carbon copy, field works the same way as To, but can be less straightforward. This field works best to keep people in the loop. If expecting a response from someone or when assigning a task, add the recipient to the To field.

The Bcc, or blind carbon copy, field is perhaps the most challenging of the three. In their book, Shipley and Schwalbe describe blind carbon copies as "sneaky things" that "should be handled with extreme care." They go on to explain that Bccs rarely should be used for communication within an organization for the simple reason of not talking behind the backs of colleagues. However, About.com points out that Bccs are useful for individuals or organizations to send mass e-mails including newsletters or membership information to undisclosed recipients, which protects the recipients' anonymity.

Signing Off

Signature blocks are another important component of an e-mail. By automatically including one at the end of every e-mail, auditors can inform recipients of their name, title, and company, and provide contact information. Such a signature will give recipients all the information they need to add a person to their address books.

Also, if auditors choose to sign their name in a more casual way (e.g., Thanks again, Jane) when closing an e-mail, recipients will still know the auditor's full name.

Here's an example:

Jane S. Doe
Chief Audit Executive

Anycompany Inc.
1212 Any Street
City, ST 12121

Tel: 999-999-9999
Fax: 999-999-9999

www.anycompany.com

Subject Line
"Next to your name, the subject line is the first thing the recipient sees," writes Heinz Tschabitscher in About.com's guide to e-mail. Because a subject line has the power to get a message read or ignored, it should get as much consideration as what is written in the body. In Send, Shipley and Schwalbe write, "a subject line is how you tell yourself what you're saying. If you're having trouble coming up with your subject line, it's a pretty good indication that something's wrong with your message."

Here are some examples of bad subject lines:

  • Audit report
  • Meeting
  • Quick Question
  • FYI

Examples of good subject lines are:

  • Comments on the operations department audit report.
  • Recap and action items from the 9/15/08 department meeting.
  • Question about inaccuracies in third-quarter financial data.
  • Notes from 10/1/08 audit interview — FYI.

When writing a subject line, the text needs to be informative and address each item discussed in the body (e.g., operations dept., audit report, and next week's staff meeting). Above all else, internal auditors should use the subject line. Not doing so could cause an e-mail to be ignored, deleted, or at the very least, delay a response.

Message Body
Once an e-mail has been addressed to the appropriate recipients and contains a compelling subject line, it's time to get to the point and share the information. But auditors should keep in mind that a recipient deserves an easy-to-understand, grammatically correct e-mail. Sending an e-mail instead of a letter isn't an excuse to be lazy about punctuation and grammar. (For a refresher on these topics, refer to "Five Ways to Sharpen Your Writing Skills," featured in the January 2008 issue).

Unless it's obvious that an e-mail does not warrant an opening greeting (e.g., back-and-forth e-mail exchange or an extremely informal relationship), open your e-mail with a salutation like Dear or Greetings, followed by the recipient's name. Deciding how to address the recipient is important. According to the authors of Send, "People you don't know are always Mr. and Ms." It's a good idea to address the recipient this way until they tell you otherwise, which could be by signing their response Jack instead of Mr. Shepherd. In the case of a gender-neutral name (e.g., Pat or Chris), Shipley and Schwalbe recommend using Google to do some research or writing the recipient's first and last name (e.g., Dear Pat Riley or Dear Chris Griffin).

Closing an e-mail is equally as important as how it is opened. As previously mentioned, the way an e-mail is signed tells the recipient how the sender would like to be addressed in future correspondence. Also, Shipley and Schwalbe point out, "How you present your name tells the recipient how you see yourself in relation to them. Henry Ford is different from Henry or Hank."

To introduce a signature, there are many choices: sincerely, regards, warm regards, yours, best wishes, and so on. As a rule, auditors should consider their relationship to the recipient when choosing a complimentary closing, making sure their choice isn't too formal or informal. Of course, it is also acceptable to dispense with closings entirely in some instances, especially if that is common practice within an organization.

Overall, the best e-mail bodies are concise, to the point, and free of spelling and grammatical errors. Also, if an e-mail ends up asking too many questions, it is probably a better idea to call the recipient rather than pressing send.

SENDING WITH CONFIDENCE

By first determining whether e-mail is the appropriate method to share the information at hand and then creating a well-written, impactful message, internal auditors are taking a proactive role in making sure their e-mail gets read. After all, out of the 183 billion e-mail messages sent each day, they can't all stand out. Also, by improving the way auditors e-mail, chances are good that others will notice and do the same.