Saving commonly used emails for quick use as email stationary is not a new idea, but there are actually not many tools out there to make it easier. Our friends at Maysoft have created one for IBM Notes.
Think about this: If every user sends 20 emails per day, and you have 100 people in your workgroup/organization, that equals 2,000 messages per day. That makes 2,000 chances to send incomplete, or inaccurate emails. Email stationary tools are the solution.
Why use an email stationary tool?
One badly worded message can undo years of relationship building and brand building. You really have no idea what your users are writing. The leaked emails from Enron are the perfect example, showing all the various kinds of misuse of email that exists. The test of a “good” email is quality, accuracy and completeness as defined by the recipient, not the sender.
You don’t need to take my word for it. Ask your email administrator to read the sent messages from your staff. You may not like what you find. You will find erroneous, rushed and incomplete emails, again, viewed from the eyes of the recipient. The bigger problem is that most managers have no idea about email quality until an angry customer forwards the email to them. Having your customers be the quality control mechanism for your email is a really bad idea. Try telling your boss that is how you manage customer communications and see how that works out for you.
So the question I have to you is this: “How do you make it super easy for all your users to best represent your organization and send complete, correct and useful emails while also making it quick and easy to do their work”? And I might add without extensive training in writing skills, too?
The solution
Enter OneVoice. OneVoice is a simple email stationary tool which gives employees a library of messages that best represents your organization, its ideas and its goals. Then it’s incredibly easy to add these messages to any email. Voila! You are instantly communicating with OneVoice!
What does this mean for managers? And does it require extensive setup? Actually, it is extremely easy to get started. The best way to get started with OneVoice is to simply have your users read through their “sent” folders and pick messages that they “recognize” as important or whose concept they have sent more than once. Copy and paste those into the library as drafts. The next step is to remove signatures and other personal information. Some organizations also want a manager to approve these messages before they are shared to the library. In very short order, you will have a large library that, right from the start, that will handle over 90% of the OneVoice messaging requirements.
Over time users can add additional content and “advertise” it to your group. This means letting others know it is available to be used by them and when it is appropriate to use this message.
OneVoice is a clever and simple way to extend your email platform to help everybody write complete, consistent, high quality and concise emails by sharing the best emails from the organization.