Am I about to simplify your email formatting forever? Maybe. You’re welcome in advance 🤓
So much of our professional lives exist in written communication, and it can be exhausting. We rattle off emails in seconds, we keep it short, we answer the next one. On top of moving through the motions, most of us are at least a little aware of how the message might be received too. Sometimes the stakes are high!
In my time managing a support team that dealt in sensitive immigration matters, tone meant a lot. It was a huge component of our training program, and one tool seemed to help everyone: the Exclamation Point Sandwich (patent not pending).
This magical sandwich framework removes the need to ponder tone in almost any email scenario, letting you focus on the actual words you need to say. With very little effort on your part (#templatesftw), you can draft any message with a reader-friendly structure and an unnoticeably pleasant tone.
This wouldn’t be a blog if I cut right to it, so what have I got for you?
- Why email tone matters
- Two types of written communicators
- Basic structure and template
- Template breakdown and tips for better emails
- There are always exceptions to the rule!
Email tone matters
Have you seen that challenge where aspiring actors throw 5 emojis on the screen and attempt to say the same word in the tone of each emoji to prove that they have the ~acting~ skills to justify their exorbitant LA rent? No? Well you’re not missing much, but the point is this –
We all say the same words with different meanings every day. I guarantee that you would say ‘Good morning’ very differently to your perfectly nice door-person than to your dog or that coworker wearing the same outfit they wore yesterday. Your words are the same, but the lilt in your voice and the look on your face and even the timing between each word all imply a much different meaning.
In an email, I can’t see if your ‘Good morning’ includes a nice smile or a sarcastic twinge or a raised brow. You can add some context or lean into the exclamation points, which certainly helps:
Good morning! Looks like you had some fun last night…
Can you believe we have another 4 hour compliance training today? Good morning!
Good morning! I love your scruffy little face so stinking much!
Usually in an email, you just want to get to the point. You need to get to the point. Short messages are always ideal, especially at work. To some of us though, short messages can feel cold and rude.
We want to seem open and receptive to whatever response, but we don’t want to sound like a child. We need to keep things short and concise, but we still don’t want to come off like an asshole.
It can be tough to balance, especially when everyone tends to fall into two main camps.
Two types of written communicators
Your natural use of exclamation points probably stems from many things – maybe a traumatic misunderstanding with a friend or a stern grammar teacher or lifelong conditioning to sound ‘nice’ or ‘professional’ in writing. We can break those folks into two primary types:
The enthusiast uses exclamation points in almost every sentence! This is often an attempt to sound nice, especially when delivering not-so-nice information! Sure, it works grammatically – it might even work for each individual sentence if they weren’t strung together! But I think we can all agree – excessive exclamation points are a little much!
Especially in school, we’re taught to use exclamation points sparingly (or never). This is completely fair, they can be a lot. Maybe you had a teacher or job that had no space for the extra punctuation. Maybe it doesn’t bother you to sound nice in writing (which is quite the privilege, btw). But it can come off cold. Exclamation points are not necessary most of the time, but if you’ve ever gotten feedback about being cold or unapproachable, you may want to consider how to spruce up your writing.
If you don’t like accordions, just know: Some people overuse exclamation points, and some folks avoid them at all times.
For the most effective written communication, we need to find a happy medium! Why? Most people read emails the same way that they write them.
Tangent time:
It’s sort of like love languages in a relationship in that individual love languages vary. The whole point of learning love languages is that your partner very likely has a different love language than you. Just because you need quality time to feel loved doesn’t mean it’s what your partner most needs to feel loved. For a successful relationship, it’s helpful to know your partner’s love language so that you can better show your love in a way that your partner needs and understands it.
Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the time or patience to know an email recipient like a partner.
When I was a support agent, I was sending at least 100 emails a day to customers. Double or triple that if you count emails to internal folks tied to cases. It was impossible to know the recipient’s email style, and even if I did, it was always most helpful to keep things consistent and cater to whatever that style might be.
If you’re not finding middle ground, it’s very possible that your message is getting lost in interpretation. And if you still need some convincing, here’s some advice and/or cold, hard truths based on the type of communicator you might identify with:
For my enthusiasts:
- You’re likely annoying people you email.
- Especially if those people are abstainers. You want to find a middle ground that goes unnoticed by most readers, especially those least like you.
- You don’t need to cushion your words!
- If you have tough news to share, don’t try to soften it – don’t distract from your message or the overall tone you need to convey.
- For the many in this group raised female: You don’t owe shit to anyone.
- If Chad could say the same thing without worrying about the recipient’s feelings, so can you. Empathy is absolutely a thing, but not at the expense of what you need to say.
For my abstainers:
- You could be offending some people you email.
- Everyone communicates differently – even if you were intentional about your words and punctuation, keeping every sentence exactly the same can come off as rude.
- The pillars of ‘professional communication’ that say no to exclamation points is outdated – don’t be a boomer. And don’t be a try-hard.
- Maybe it’s social media, but have you noticed the more laid-back workspaces of the 21st century? People want to relate to you, even in the workplace – it’s ok to color your communication now!
Basic template and structure
So let’s get to it – what’s the solution? Almost every email can fit into this general format:
Salutation here,
Nice little intro with an exclamation!
Put any body text here, make it as long as you need. Only use periods, keep it short, make it easy for the recipient to skim and understand. Maybe add some formatting like numbers or bullets if it’s getting long, more to come on that… And make your point.
Provide a friendly outro, usually an invite for questions with exclamation!
Goodbye word(s) of choice,
And you’re done
Notice the spacing?
The structure and spacing here are just as important, if not more so, than the punctuation!
The punctuation gives a nice tone to the email, but the spacing makes it skimmable. When it’s skimmable, the recipient can easily skip the niceties and get to the meat of your message. This invites any reader preference to not notice your tone/format at all – which, as we’ve established, is largely the point!
Let’s break this down with a few examples:
Salutations
Keep it simple here! ‘Hi XXX,’ is pretty fool-proof.
If you don’t know the recipient, you can then go with ‘Hi there’ or ‘Hello’ – this also works for multiple recipients. If you really want to be fun about it, I like using ‘Hi everyone’ if I’m sending something out to a group.
My biggest note here – there is no need to start with ‘Dear XXX’. You are not writing a formal letter to be sent in the mail. Not convinced? Really think about the term ‘Dear’ when used to address someone. If you wouldn’t call the person ‘My dear’, then maybe don’t use that word to address that person at all.
This is an email. Keep it simple, if slightly informal.
Introduction
This is your big chance to use an exclamation point! With that in mind, it means your words should be pleasant. There are two easy approaches to take here depending on whether this is the beginning of a conversation or a follow-up.
Fresh email:
I usually stick with some friendly sentiment that almost always uses the word ‘hope’. Maybe there’s psychology around this, but I think it always sounds nice and sets a positive tone to the message.
- I hope this message finds you well!
- It adds a touch of formality, and usually I do mean it.
- I hope you had a nice weekend!
- Great option to change things up on a Monday/Tuesday –
- I hope you enjoyed [insert something they mentioned prior]!
- People love to feel heard – if you can call on some previous knowledge of their life, like a movie they wanted to see or their kid’s soccer game, it’s an easy way to add the warm and fuzzies to your message.
- If you need something, this method is especially helpful. And if what you need is simple, they’ll want to tell you about the thing you mentioned – why not quickly answer your question while they’re at it?
Sending a reply:
I always try to include some sort of gratitude – maybe this came from my support days that often involved 3 follow-ups and a phone call to get the info I needed. But if someone is replying to an email you sent, it never hurts to start off with a quick thank you. This can apply to many situations:
- Thank you for getting back to me!
- The easiest generic reply, especially if the reply took some time (a lot of us apologize for not answering right away – kinda nice if someone is still grateful you got back to them, right?)
- Thank you for following up!
- Handy if you didn’t expect them to reply, or better yet – you’re the someone that hasn’t gotten back to the support team trying to get info from you! Follow-ups are annoying to send, so this can be a simple way to let the person know you appreciate them.
- Thank you for letting me know!
- In support world, this might also read ‘Thank you for the feedback!’ Most useful if someone tells you something you didn’t ask for, whether or not you wanted to know.
- Thank you so much for looking into this for me!
- If someone was doing you a favor or their reply likely took some time to put together, recognize that!
- Thank you for answering my questions!
- Self-explanatory and an example that you can always get specific here, whether they answered a question or did something else. This is a simple way to acknowledge the other person’s time and effort to email you.
You might be thinking – why so many options?
To answer with another question – do you want to sound like a robot?
Probably not. Putting the extra few seconds into a personalized and/or responsive intro can go a long way, but saying the exact same thing every time will strip any ounce of authenticity from your words very quickly. If your intro has the power to set a warm tone right away, it has equal power to set a cold tone.
So change it up! We’re going for an authentic, human intro that reminds the recipient that you’re a human just doing their job too. Be pleasant, and you’d be surprised how that outlook can pay back in dividends.
Support people, listen up!
Many of my favorite work relationships started their in-person journey as ‘Wait, you’re Maring?’ Email intros aren’t the only reason for that, but if you do a lot of internal emailing from the same email as a dozen other people, it can be hard to stand out. Chances are, the recipient is working through tons of emails like yours – I found that showing a little kindness to everyone, not just customers, can go a long way!
Body Message
This is the meat of your email, where you say what you need to say, no exclamation points please. If it’s a longer message, it may be fine to trickle another one in there, but you should also always ask yourself – does my email really need to be this long?
Some long emails are inevitable, especially if you’re sending out meeting notes or a project update – if you absolutely cannot put those longer notes into a separate document, then use formatting! If I have multiple questions, I love an ordered list. If an item is really important, I might bold it or make it a different color.
So long as you don’t make it look like a middle school powerpoint presentation on dolphins, most people will be grateful for the line breaks. And if you don’t believe me, take it from some folks who actually did the research on how little people read.
My biggest email body tip: BREAK IT UP
If you take one thing out of this article, please let it be this. DO NOT send a huge block of text! Use some paragraphs if you’re sending more than 3-4 sentences. I promise that if I do get myself to read a big block of text, I’m going to hate you while I do it.
Outro
I usually keep this one VERY simple – you don’t want to say anything that takes away from your actual message. It should generally be a nice thought that naturally completes your exclamation point sandwich. My most common:
- Please let me know if you have any questions!
- It’s a clear, yet approachable ending. I use this in maybe 80% of my formal emails to this day.
- Have a great weekend!
- Because we still like to change things up, and what better reminder that we’re all human than the weekend? Also, this can be very reassuring that you don’t expect a response at the end of a Friday
- Enjoy [insert something they mentioned prior]!’
- You can always get more personal here too, especially if you don’t expect an immediate response
Parting Salutations
Again, it’s the end of your email – keep it simple! Many companies have a built-in signature for you, and it’s totally fine to say nothing and rely on that.
If you don’t have that or want to sign off anyway, I’d suggest:
- Just use your name
- If you left a nice outro, then your name alone is absolutely sufficient.
- Best,
- More formal, but still simple. Avoid ‘Best wishes’ and especially ‘Best regards’ – one sounds like a sympathy card, and the other is the biggest corporate ‘fuck you’ out there. We all know which one that is…
- Thanks!
- Probably my most-used internal sign-off, and definitely in play whenever I’ve asked some questions. It’s absolutely redundant (not sure if you noticed my clever avoidance of ‘Thanks’ in the intro options – this is why), but I think it’s a nice sentiment and reiterates that you appreciate the recipient.
There are always exceptions to the rule!
Everything in this article is intended to provide guidance for most professional emails – it can apply to a lot of scenarios, but not everything! Never everything.
If something is extremely serious, then be serious.
If you’re super close with a colleague, then obviously all of the formality isn’t needed! I don’t think I use this much at all when emailing my own team – I get straight to the point, no extra setup or exit needed. Your team and your work bff probably know your tone and don’t care.
Applying a less friendly tone is a valuable tool in itself too – leaving out niceties makes everything more direct or using the intro/outro guidance provided without exclamation points can convey irritation or frustration.
Ultimately, trust your gut when it comes to emails! And if you’re not sure, put yourself in the place of your recipient:
- How would I feel if xxx person sent this to me?
- Is my message clear?
- Can my email be any shorter?
If you ask yourself these few things, common sense shouldn’t steer you wrong!
Maring Eberlein
Some might call me a little obsessed with support content, and yeah… I’ve definitely found my niche somewhere between the support and content worlds. While growing within my first role in tech as a support agent, I saw the impacts of clear communication for users first-hand. I also experienced the challenges that come with a lack of resources for an undervalued craft. With a lot of luck and good people in my corner, I’ve been able to focus my work on my interests with the larger goal of supporting the supporters. I know you’re out there, and I hope this was helpful! Please contact me with any suggestions or requests!
