Are you crying wolf?

by Nora Rubinoff on November 1, 2009

I’ve found myself pondering the concept of marking an email high priority quite a bit lately.

YOUR high priority, or theirs?

Be honest here. If you mark an email high priority, is it really high priority for your recipient, or just something that the you are stressing out over?

If you cry wolf too many times, the impact of your high priority message is lessened.

Okay, so when should I mark a message high priority?

Times I think it’s okay to mark a message high priority:

  • If recipient is about to go into a meeting and meeting time/location/arrangements have changed last minute
  • Travel plans for sender or recipient have changed last minute

    • There may be a few others that I can’t think of at the moment, but not many.

    Try this instead

    Consider the impact of your subject line. Is something hot to you? How about starting your subject line with:

  • Time Sensitive!
  • Your response is needed today!

    • Or…perhaps it’s really just best to pick up the phone.  Sometimes we all get so absorbed in our email and our inbox that we forget we could get things done more quickly with a simple phone call.

    Know your email program, too. What you may think of as a “flag” in your application may come across as High Priority or Urgent in your recipient’s email app.

    I’d love to hear some of your suggested subject lines here too — please post them in the comments below.

    Appearance is everything

    EmailReplies.com makes a great point about high priority email. They say, “Moreover, even if a mail has high priority, your message will come across as slightly aggressive if you flag it as ‘high priority’.”

    Most folks know that typing in all caps is considered shouting. It’s important to know that high priority messages can come across with a negative (aggressive) connotation as well.

    There’s a time and place for everything

    There is a time and place for everything. The next time you consider sending a high priority message, ask yourself:

  • Should I just pick up the phone instead?
  • Do I really need to mark this high priority — whose high priority is it, mine or the recipient’s?
  • Will this message come across as aggressive to my recipient?
  • Could I accomplish this better by a more targeted subject line?

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    About the author:  At Your Service Cincinnati principal Nora Rubinoff’s core virtual assistant services include social media management, WordPress support, online reputation management, project management, customer relationship management, customized e-mail marketing campaigns and productivity enhancement. Nora is a Mac and PC specialist. Nora is enthusiastic about architecting solutions that enable clients to make more out of their business day. Nora is a recipient of the Karen S. House Award for Regional Collaboration as well as the Women of Excellence Award, several state and local government proclamations and holds the IVAA EthicsCheck™ certification. Nora is a past board member for IVAA and serves on several community advisory boards. Read more from this author

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    Tagged as: Best practices, Email, etiquette

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