WRITING WELL
ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY ADOBE STOCK
CONNECTING
WITH REMOTE COLLEAGUES : IN WRITING
EMAIL HAS ITS FLAWS , SO HERE ’ S HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT .
BY LESLIE O ’ FLAHAVAN , E-WRITE
18 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE
Remote work isn ’ t new anymore , but we can still get better at it . We can have more productive virtual meetings . We can build personal connections with colleagues we rarely ( or never ) see in person . We can be more respectful of each other ’ s time , so work tasks don ’ t spill over into personal life . And we can write emails that don ’ t confuse or waste the reader ’ s time .
The hard fact is that email is a clunker of a communication channel . It ’ s terrible at conveying the writer ’ s tone properly . People receive more email than they can ever read . The youngest employees in the workforce aren ’ t email natives .
And remote or hybrid work magnifies all of email ’ s bad traits . Email is poor at helping us build relationships or improve efficiency , both of which are difficult enough when we work remotely .
Badly written email does more harm when we work remotely because we don ’ t have the opportunity to build the same kinds of relationships we do when we ’ re onsite together . We don ’ t know each other ’ s temperaments as well , so we mistake a dry sense of humor in an email for sarcasm or malice . We can ’ t read each other ’ s body language .
And remote work doesn ’ t allow for as many spur-of-the-moment “ Can you talk ?” conversations . Which puts more pressure on email , especially when we ’ re proposing a new approach to a project , for example , or trying to overcome our reader ’ s objections . These tasks are just easier when you ’ re face-to-face .
HOW TO MAKE EMAIL WORK
Like many workplaces , contact centers rely heavily on email to communicate internally . But contact center employees - from managers to directors to line supervisors to agents - may rely even more heavily on email than employees in other parts of the company . Agents often work in round-the-clock shifts , so someone ’ s sending email at every hour of the day .
We need to make email work in contact centers because we send and receive so much of it there !
So , what can we remote and hybrid workers do to combat email ’ s frailties ?