Question about email etiquette

[Yellow Fang]

If you are addressing a formal email to someone you do not know very well, do you put

'Dear Mr Lastname' if a chap or 'Dear Ms Lastname' if a female chap, or can you use their forename if they wrote at the end of their email, e.g. Dear Michelle?

 

[accountantpete]

I would address a formal letter to someone I didn't know personally as Dear Mr Lastname etc and end with Yours faithfully.

 

[swee'pea99]

If they had signed off their email to me 'Adrian', I'd address them as Adrian. If they'd signed off 'Adrian West', I'd use Dear Adrian West. In other words, I wouldn't go to first name terms unless they'd gone there first, but I wouldn't use 'Mr' if they'd volunteered their first name.

 

[Ashtrayhead]

If they included their name then use it in your reply and sign off with 'Yours Sincerely'

 

[Yellow Fang]

Do you even put 'Yours sincerely' or 'Yours faithfully' in emails? It seems too formal and old fashioned. I nearly always put 'Best regards' or 'Many regards'. Even writing 'Dear ...' seems too formal for an email, although you can hardly write 'Hi' to someone you don't know well.

 

[Maz]

I think I would just sign off a formal email with 'Regards'.

 

[benb]

In general, I try to write emails as if you were talking to them.

If I have no idea what they want to be called, then I start the email with their full name (but no "dear"):

John Smith

Regarding blah blah blah, ...

or

Mr Smith

Regarding blah blah blah, ...

Then to sign off, I eith just write "Ben Bawden" or
"Regards,
Ben Bawden"

 

[swee'pea99]

'Kind regards' for me.

 

[yello]

It is a difficult one I guess because so few people actually write formal emails and so there is perhaps little or no accepted etiquette.

I personally always use 'Dear Mr/Mrs/Sir/Madam' etc etc to someone I don't know but it may be overkill. If they respond with their first name then I will use it in any follow up emails. Perhaps oddly though, I use 'regards' to close in both cases.

 

[Night Train]

For initial contact for formal stuff that would, in a previous age, be a letter I use
Dear Surname,
Yours Sincerely,

or

Dear Sir/Madam,
Yours Faithfully,

I would also include all contact details and references as if it were a letter. Thereafter I would respond in kind for the rest of the exchange.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I thought that emails were informal?

If I wanted to write something formal I'd do it as a letter in a word doc' and attach it to an email with a very short cover in the email body.

I use Hi Christian name and regards/best/cheers or similar to sign off.

 

[biggs682]

+ 1 re spokeydokey's comments

 

[colly]

I get e mails as enquiries and do what Swee'pea said above, I take the tone of the enquiry as guide to the tone of the reply. Maybe keep it a little more formal than the original e mail.

'Your obedient servant' as a sign off I save for certain, ahem, 'special friends''

 

[coffeejo]

I get around the whole Dear / Hi thing by starting such an email "Good morning/afternoon" and then jump straight to the content, signing off "Kind regards, Jo".

As for formal/informal, yeah, what SpokeyDokey said.

 

[col]

I type an email as I would a letter, just habit I suppose?