How to Write an Email That Gets a Response

Isn't it frustrating when you don't get replies to important emails that you have sent!  Well, certainly the receiver is responsible to reply. However, there are some tactics and strategies that you can employ to improve your chances of getting that elusive - quick and complete reply

Here's an article from CBS that I found very helpful. 

Right now, my inbox contains about 200 messages that I haven't had time to deal with. I'm not referring to the thousands of messages that I've archived and saved for some future occasion, when they'll no doubt come in handy; I mean email that I haven't read, replied to or otherwise taken action on. If one of those messages happens to be from you, I apologize for not getting back to you yet.

But you know what? Sometimes, the fact that I haven't replied yet is at least partly your own fault. You wrote an email that was, frankly, more difficult to deal with than it should have been, so it fell to the back of the line. And at this point, the reality is that I might never get to it.

• Business writing doesn't have to bore you to tears
• Force yourself to deal with email more efficiently
• Why your emails are too long -- and how to improve

So how do you write an email that gets a fast response? In a nutshell, you want to make it as easy as possible for the recipient to read, understand and act on your message. After all, if your email is crafted for ease of handling, you're the one that gets answered quickly rather than drifting to the bottom of the slush pile. Helping your recipient helps you.

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