Best Regards, Your Email Sign Off

Dear OITE Career Blog Readers, Writing effective and professional e-mail correspondence is an important skill to master early on in your career. The OITE has created a comprehensive guide on “How to Write Effective Professional Email” to help guide you, but there are many sections where one can go awry, including: subject line, greeting and the actual body of the email. Today though, we will focus on email closings and signature blocks. What’s in an e-mail sign-off? To many, those few final words are extremely important and tricky to get right. Your closing is often where relationships, hierarchies, and your overall tone is established and/or clarified. Here are some common possibilities (from most formal to informal):

• Sincerely,
• Thank you in advance.
• Best regards,
• Kind regards,
• Warm regards,
• Fondly,
• Enjoy your weekend!
• Cheers!

Generally, within a professional setting, you should work to maintain the highest level of formality, until otherwise signaled from your recipient. One could argue that the worst faux pas of an email closing would be to come off as too familiar too quickly. The following closings are acceptable if you are emailing your partner (romantic, not business), friends, or family; however, should never be used in professional correspondence:

• xoxo,
• Love,
• Hugs,
• Take it easy…{insert bro, dude, and any other casual identifier}
• Any smiley face emoticon [:-) or emoji

Another way to quickly come across as unprofessional is to have a signature block with information that is not related to your line of work. Common mistakes include:

• Quotes from Gandhi or some other inspirational figure
• Biblical verses
• Using work email to campaign for a political candidate or cause
• Using too many different colors and styles of font
• Including every possible way the reader can be in touch with you
• Here is an example of what NOT to do:

Quite commonly in our e-mail culture, business messages quickly evolve from formal to informal within a few back-and-forth messages. Everybody has their own e-mail style and opinion on preferred closings. It can be interesting to see how small variations like the insertion of an exclamation point instead of a comma can change the tone. More important to note is how these subtle nuances trigger different opinions. Forbes published an article on “89 Ways to Sign Off on an Email”, and staff writer, Susan Adams, elicited help from business etiquette consultants, technology writers and career development authors for a variety of perspectives. Read the full article to see the complete list, but here are some highlights:

• Best– This is the most ubiquitous. It’s widely accepted. I recommend it highly and so do the experts. OITE response: Widely used, but depending on the tone of the rest of the email, this can also come across as rude or a curt brush off.
• Best Regards– More formal than the ubiquitous “Best.” I use this occasionally.
• Thanks- Lett says this is a no-no. “This is not a closing. It’s a thank-you,” she insists. I disagree. Forbes Leadership Editor Fred Allen uses it regularly and I think it’s an appropriate, warm thing to say. I use it too.
• Thanks!– This rubs me the wrong way because I used to have a boss who ended every email this way. She was usually asking me to perform a task and it made her sign-off seem more like a stern order, with a forced note of appreciation, than a genuine expression of gratitude. But in the right context, it can be fine.
• Thank you– More formal than “Thanks.” I use this sometimes.
• Thank you!– This doesn’t have the same grating quality as “Thanks!” The added “you” softens it.
• Rushing– This works when you really are rushing and may have made typos or written abbreviated sentences. It expresses humility and regard for the recipient. OITE response: Is this really necessary? Be careful of what you send in haste.
• Your name– Terse but just fine in many circumstances. Probably not a good idea for an initial email. OITE response: Disagree – sometimes you just do not need one!
• High five from down low– A colleague shared this awful sign-off which is regularly used by a publicist who handles tech clients. An attempt to sound cool, which fails.
• Sent from my iPhone– This may be the most ubiquitous sign-off. It used to bother me but I realize that it explains brevity and typos. I’ve erased it from my iPhone signature because I don’t like to freight my emails with extra words, and in many instances I don’t want the recipient to know I’m not at my desk. But maybe I should restore it. The same goes for automated messages on other devices. OITE response: Go to your setting and turn this off; nobody needs to know you are sending email from your blackberry or smartphone.
• Typos courtesy of my iPhone– Slightly clever but it’s gotten old. Better to use the automated message.
• Sent from a prehistoric stone tablet– I laughed the first time I read it but then the joke wore thin.
• Yours Truly– I don’t like this. It makes me feel like I’m ten years old and getting a note from a pen pal in Sweden.

What do you think? What is your go-to email sign-off? Leave a comment below.   Thank you for being a valued reader, Yours in career development, Wishing you all the best, OITE Career Blog