The e-mail etiquette also includes behavioral rules for replying to messages. Most programs and web services display two buttons: 'Reply' and 'Reply all'. What happens here? Well, in the subject line, 'Re:' will automatically be inserted to indicate that it’s a response (or reply). Lastly, the programs insert the original content of the e-mail in quote form into the text. The recipient’s e-mail address will then appear in the address field and you can choose whether to reply to just the one address or also to the other addresses who received the source e-mail). What do you exactly have to consider when replying to an e-mail?
- Reply all: Always ask yourself before you hit the 'Reply all' button: will all these recipients find my reply interesting? You can save many people from doing unnecessary work if you only send your answer to those who will really benefit from it.
- Re: This shows the recipient that this e-mail has something to do with their original message. If the recipient answers again, it will change to 'Re: Re' and so on. You can delete this from the subject line if it starts to become too much.
- Quoting: The same applies to text quoted from original e-mails. In longer conversations, it’s easy to get confused when so much text is being quoted. It can be useful to clean it up, but be careful when you do. You should always quote important information when referring to it, so make sure you don’t delete it.
There’s not really an ideal amount of time to wait for answering an e-mail, especially because you don’t know when the sender checks their mails. E-mails are sometimes sent back and forth so quickly that it seems like both parties are under time pressure. If the sender needs an answer right away, it might be better to call them.
If you already know that you can’t answer within the next 24 hours and it seems like it’s important, you could write a quick e-mail back to confirm that you are interested, but will reply in more detail when you have the time.
A common function of e-mail services is Autoreply, which is an automatic response to all incoming messages. You should write the text in advance, which will then be automatically sent to anyone who writes to you. This function is especially useful if you aren’t able to answer you e-mails for a long time, which is why it’s referred to as the out of office notification. This enables you to inform others about the duration of your absence if you are on holiday, for example. Do not forget to deactivate the automatic message upon your return. Under no circumstances should Autoreply be set up to send acknowledgements of receipts.