One of my absolute biggest pet peeves when it comes to email etiquette is when a person ends an email with some closing sign off immediately followed by a default signature block.
This usually strikes me as both a bit terse and lazy.
It seems terse because the jump from a closing salutation to a person’s full name/title/logo seems stiff. And it’s lazy because most emails, especially if they are formal but even if they are simply reestablishing contact or beginning a new project, are actually like letters. If you have addressed the person by saying “Hi [first name],” then it makes sense to close by writing your own first name as well.
It take one second to write your first name before the signature and this effort goes a long way to showing that you’re intentional and personable, that you care more about relationships than titles, and that you are not such a busy person that you don’t even have time to write your own name before pressing send.
If an email is more like a text message or is more like a back-and-forth thread, then it’s likely both persons have dropped salutations altogether, which may be fine given a certain level of rapport.
But as longer as there are salutations, I think there should be names.
In another post, I may write about why I detest the sign off “Best”, but for now I will simply post this chart showing that emails closed with a variation of thank you tend to get significantly more responses.
Yours sincerely,
Amanda
Amanda Achtman 