Email vs phone - which do you use? This may seem like a trivial question and probably one that bears no significance at all, but in actual fact your operating style - whether you use phone or email - determines what kind of assistant you are and what you're like to work with. And you may not realise it, but your operating style can actually affect others. I'll explain why.
I embrace the email operating style myself, and with good reason. In a job that shows no boundaries in what's asked of us, its essential for us to be able to track what we do. When managing thousands of requests from all directions, the use of email can actually come in handy, especially when you are asked what the status is on something, or you need to pick up on a task after parking it for some time. A simple search of your inbox will uncover it all - the original request, the trail of action and the status of where it's at. Exactly what you need when you are being asked for an update by your boss! But when the original request was issued and followd up with over the phone, all that you've got to rely on is your memory. And when there is 10,000 things going on at any one time, let's face it, your memory can get a little fuzzy. Ideally for me I have a relationship with my manager that is carried out entirely over email, so that he can too can track what he delegates to me. When it comes to working with other assistants, email is also my preferred method of operation, so much so that when the phone rings I sometimes just don't answer it - as it will no doubt be followed up with an email anyway, that can be actioned and tracked, and so the process begins.
Perhaps its a generation thing, or perhaps its just individual style, but I personally find other assistants that want to do everything via phone, utterly frustrating. Its nice to be personal, polite and friendly, but when we are all doing the same mind blowingly huge job and trying to achieve the same thing, you should be excused for wanting to revert to email to converse. With flags, categories, task lists and folders all there at your finger tips to organise every piece of work that comes your way, why would you to work any other way? But of course there are those that want to do things via phone - they want to follow up everything invite they send you with a courtesy call; or they want to call you to check your manager's availability when they can seen it right there in the tracker; or worse still they want to call to explain an email they sent you that already explains itself. And I hate to say it, but I just don't have the time for it. We are ALL time poor, and with that in common we should have the intent to help each other out with our workloads by not picking up the phone. Don't steal precious minutes out of the day with unnecessary phone calls. When that phone rings you are forced to stop what you are doing and concentrate on the new request, which then must be either actioned there an now or recorded for later. When we are all so time poor, interruptions in our productivity are not welcomed especially when we often are working to very tight and short deadlines. But its not just the interruption that discredits phone calls, moreover, everything that is spoken of over the phone is untracked, and unrecorded. Unless that is, you are manually taking notes of what's been discussed. Yes that can be done, but is it a pain in the butt? Yes it is.
So what style are you? And do you ever think about how your style effects other EAs that you work with? In an era where the EA/PA role is moving towards being one of operating purely online, with online talk tools at our finger tips including Jabber, Google Talk, Text buddy and Lync, and the emergence of virtual assistants working completely remotely for their managers, the idea of using the phone will soon feel like something from the dark ages. Perhaps next time you go to pick up the phone, think twice and consider whether its really necessary, and whether an email would suffice instead. An email that can be managed in the recipient's own time, and something that can be tracked and filed by both of you.
When you're receiving up to 250 emails a day however, sometimes we need to ensure we aren't sending unnecessary emails or emails that aren't concise. The intent should always be to ease the workload for us all, so leave the phone on its hook and start typing, with the following in mind:
- The subject line should always summarise the email's purpose so the recipient can prioritise it at a glance. Consider using headings like - Meeting Request; Information; Invitation; Response; Reminder; Action so the recipient knows exactly what is required of them.
- Don’t send thank you emails - they are unnecessary and just one more email you don't need.
- Be brief and concise with your writing - get to the point or the purpose so the recipient can immediately review if they are going to Do it, Defer it, Delegate it, or Delete it.
- Limit use of reply all function and the copying staff unnecessarily - do we ALL need to know? Probably not.
- Use Outlook's functionality - Use voting buttons where you can; set reminders/expiry dates for items that need actioning by a deadline; set rules in your inbox to filter out unnecessary emails such as meeting invite acceptances.
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