With a friendly FIRST phone call to a business, would it be okay in YOUR ORGANIZATION if you used an emoticon in the follow up email?
I had a sit down with a new rep last week and went over the day’s activities. While doing so I noted that his opening emails, after the first phone call, should not use a smiley face. ie: I enjoyed speaking with you today. 🙂
The reply from this young guy was, “I use them all the time and haven’t had any issues yet.”
I said it just didn’t come off as professional for some companies and it’s hard to tell who that is until you have built up a bit of a relationship with them.
It seems that because nobody has come out and said, “Hey, I don’t like smiley’s in emails, when you don’t even know me.” that it must be acceptable.
Now, besides his emails being rife with spelling mistakes, which he also feels is not important, would YOUR COMPANY accept emoticons in first email contact with a new prospect? Am I being too old and out of date?
Does spelling actually matter? Things like the use of THEN instead of THAN etc?
How important is communication accuracy in business now that it’s 2013 and we have so many illiterate people showing off their lack of skills with the various electronic messaging forms?