A 20 line signature seems a bit excessive

February 6, 2012 11:11 AM

Lets talk about best practices for business email signatures.

In my office, we are discussion what we should have in our email signatures and I'm not sure how to balance enough information with too much.

My manager's email signature, for example, can sometimes be a half a page depending on the email program and whether or not it's a reply. Part of the problem is that she has several titles for different organizations. She also includes our physical address, links to various online presences we have, our phone number, fax number, and tagline.

On the one hand, I understand why she includes each individual element, on the other, it's just too much.

Do you know of any good resources that talk about best practices for this sort of thing? What does your office do? I would like to make a case for standardizing and shortening the email signatures for our office, but I have a feeling it's going to take some solid reasoning.

posted by Kimberly to work & money (31 answers total)

We have fairly lengthy email signatures where I work, partly because we work remotely and want to provide our clients with many ways to contact us (so our sigs include social media handles and such, as well as mailing addresses and phone numbers). However, most of us have set our email clients so that our signature is not included by default on replies.

That seems to work for us. A signature is not really necessary on a reply, and so by keeping the signature only in the initial message, it really cuts down on the scrolling in long email threads.
posted by asnider at 11:25 AM on February 6

Depends.
At our place, we have several divisions/groups/titles/programs/buildings and mailstops. I'm actually part of three different program areas. Sometimes I try to shorten my signature depending on who I am corresponding with, but usually I don't because it's a pain in the ass and I forget.

We have an internal directory with all the information we need except titles. Sometimes this information is outdated. So, if someone doesn't enter in their information, I can look it up. It takes an extra 15-45 seconds. But if I'm sending interoffice mail, I check with them to make sure their building/mailstop has not changed.

As for external partners/clients, there have been several times when I have looked through emails trying to find someone's contact information only to see that they just sign there name. I then have to research their title, address and/or phone number. This is irritating.


So, I would imagine it depends on each workplace and if the employees correspond with a lot of people outside.

I've never worked at a place that requires some sort of "standard" signature.
posted by KogeLiz at 11:26 AM on February 6

Name, title, direct phone contact information, personal email, company web address. Presumably things like your mailing address and fax number are available via the website, no? You may opt to include a direct link to the company contact information page rather than the root website if your clientele is particularly web-unsavvy.
posted by axiom at 11:27 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

correction: their not there.
posted by KogeLiz at 11:27 AM on February 6

We had a standard one that went like this:

winna
title - functional group - department
work phone * fax phone * email address
physical location


Personally, I think that having your physical address and your email in your signature is ridiculous, and depending on how often you get faxes having your fax number in there too. If someone needs to mail or fax you something they can ask you for the information - having it in every email is a waste of space.

My preference would be:

winna
title - functional group - department
work phone

because I hate getting emails that don't have the title of the person, since one sends very different types of emails to peers versus C-level staff. Putting a tag line in the email is ridiculous in my opinion, and I know that people who did so were roundly mocked by everyone that I knew. The links to separate web presences could be justified, possibly, but can't she change the size of the font?

winna
title - functional group - department
work phone
facebook twitter youtube myspace

Whatever else you do, don't put image files in your signatures. It is perhaps just a pet peeve of mine, but I get irrationally irritated by people who do that, because on a non-html email format you get a lot of cruft as residue from image file email signatures.
posted by winna at 11:31 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]

Ours is:

Firstname Lastname

Company Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip

Direct phone number
Cell phone number
Work email address

We purposely avoid titles, but that is more for internal reasons - we work in consulting, and our clients (eg corporations) put a lot more focus on titles than we do, and we don't want them to read too much into the difference between an 'analyst', 'associate', or 'manager' emailing them. The work email address is key since we have found that a forward of a forward in outlook often doesn't let you access the native email address for the original sender (eg, it'll just say "Firstname Lastname" but not let you see what their actual email is).
posted by CharlieSue at 11:31 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

If you have an excessive signature, you will be mocked on Usenet (at least in the old days; the world has moved on) (sadly, ASCII art signatures are ruined by proportional fonts).

Name + contact info. If there's a lot of contact info, point to a web page.
posted by chengjih at 11:34 AM on February 6

Ah, Google Groups, "view in fixed fonts":

...mocked on Usenet....
posted by chengjih at 11:36 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

How relevant are all those titles to the business supplying your manager with an e-mail address?

My signature is:

Title
Dept
Employer
Address

My direct phone
Department fax

My boss has several titles, too, and includes all this with his extra titles, and it does not take up half a page.

I would say in this day and age, she should include the principal pieces in her e-mail and then have a link to her profile page on your organization's website. And if your organization doesn't have profile pages for people who seem to be as involved and significant as your manager, then maybe they should?

Anyway, that is what my boss does.
posted by zizzle at 11:39 AM on February 6

The joys of working in the legal department of a megacorp; everyone here needs to have tons of info and a worthless disclaimer.

Personally? No signatures are necessary.
posted by Brian Puccio at 11:40 AM on February 6

I think it depends on audience.

If you are primarily emailing other people within your corporation, a short signature with minimal contact or identifying info is sufficient.

If you're primarily emailing clients outside your company, you will want to offer a bit more information. But I agree that 20 lines is too much.. I always heard

four
lines
are
sufficient

I think this was a guideline developed in the usenet days when some people had ridiculous gigantic ascii art in their signatures. But it seems reasonable.

Name / Title / Business group
Cell / Phone / Fax
Business Address / web site
Tag line / twitter / facebook / alternate contact

j03 Smythee // Email Sig Expert // Communication Technologies Inc
ph. 411-123-4567 // fax [phone] // cell 411-987-6543
1234 Email Sig Ln. // Internet Valley, IN // 43210 // USA!
"Better Email Signatures for Everyone!" // twitter @emailsigs // facebook.com/emailsigs

You can get a lot of informational density in four lines without making things too obnoxious.
posted by j03 at 11:42 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]

My old employer had very specific signature regulations, because they were a contracting agency, and they often placed contractors at companies for their assignments. Sometimes, though, contractors would make their signatures so that it appeared that they were employees of the company in question, rather than a contractor. Some even got in trouble for this, as it was misleading people as to who they really worked for and who their employer truly was.

So, good:

Spinifex23 Awesome, Esq.
Employee of Contractor Firm X at Prestigious Company Y.
111 whatevs lane,
slopville, WA 12121

Bad:

Spinifex23 Awesome, Esq.
Employee of Prestigious Company Y
111 whatevs lane,
slopville, WA 12121
posted by spinifex23 at 11:49 AM on February 6

Try to recommend not using images in the signature since they count as attachments, so every single email will have the paperclip making it slightly less fun to search for attachments.
posted by Khazk at 11:49 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]

I work for a small (<>

Name, Title | Company [Stock Ticker Symbol]

o [office phone#] | m [mobile#] | [email address]
...........................................................................................................

[Company] : [Tagline]

[Rotating 1 line product promotion]
[URL of promotion]
posted by donovan at 12:01 PM on February 6

I see email sigs and think I'm looking at someone sort of young or inexperienced. I sometimes use my title and company affiliation on emails outside the company the first time I communicate with someone, like:

Thanks,
A Terrible Llama
Queen Llama/Llama Land
1-800-call a llama

Other than that I kind of think they're kind of tacky but I know other company/industry cultures are different. Plus, needs are different.

It's really to convey genuinely necessary and useful information and it should be in service to the person who's receiving, not a self-promotional opportunity for the sender and should be the shortest it can be while delivering actual, important, new information.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:03 PM on February 6

The needs of a company/industry really do vary. Some commenters above suggested that the physical address was kind of unimportant, since we're living in a world of email - for my company, that's the first thing I look at in an email from someone I don't know. We're one company, with the same titles and group names that span the whole organization, but a lot of different locations, so knowing what building someone works in really clarifies what this person's expertise is likely to be.

Also was suggested that the fax number isn't relevant - it totally isn't for me. Nobody faxes me, and I don't include it in my sig. But if your job uses it, include it.

It's also been pointed out that an email address is redundant since there's no point in listing the address you're emailing from. That totally makes sense, though there could be an argument for listing a pretty routing address like [e-mail] if the return address that comes up on outgoing mail is lastmf-dept-###@company-usa.com

So yes, it can all together be too much, but there's no one thing that is useless in 100% of situations.
posted by aimedwander at 12:17 PM on February 6

Two companies ago, our standard was: "one line, less than 76 characters." You'd be amazed at how many compliments we got.

People generally followed the president's example: <name> (<work email>, <phone>, <URL of their particular corporate division page>)

Best damn signatures ever.
posted by introp at 12:39 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

Name
Title
Company
phone (direct line)
website

If they need anything else, they can use those items to find it (call me, email me, look at the website). For a large organization with multiple websites, set up separate sigs each with the relevant website and change sigs as needed.

Too much information and people are overwhelmed and won't bother. Give them a clear path to their goal, make it easy for them.
posted by headnsouth at 12:39 PM on February 6

Email Signatures for Idiots

If you want to put data behind the arguments for this, use a click tracker (bit.ly or similar) to track how many people click through to your Facebook page or Twitter account from an email signature.

Answer: 0.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:49 PM on February 6

What CharlieSue said - the email actually printed out is crucial. So many ways of routing a mail will eat the actual email address. (Outlook 2010 seems to do a better job with mail created in Outlook, but it's still an issue.)

In my organization, we have a very set format and some rules about how many lines. There is no physical address but there are two phones and email. Certain social media are encouraged.

Internally, we can go without the auto-sig.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 12:51 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

I say keep it minimal. Just enough info to do the job that an email sig is supposed to do. And nothing more.
posted by spilon at 1:06 PM on February 6

Four lines. 80 characters. dash-dash-space on the line immediately prior.

My professional signature is:

--
Name, Title
Company, City, State
Direct Telephone / Direct Email
Group Telephone / Group Email

I only include city and state because we deal with technical matters that include timestamps, and some people are reluctantly hesitant to use GMT, so it's good to indicate where I am if I'm talking local time.

Yes, it's old school usenet style, but what else is needed, really?
posted by jammer at 2:09 PM on February 6

I deal with a lot of vendors, and I often use their email signatures for contact information. If you are dealing with clients of some kind, whether sales or customer service or tech support, I suggest that you at least include name/phone/email, and I'd prefer name/address/phone/fax/email.

Please include the basics in reply signatures as well (not just first messages). In many cases, I am initiating email conversations, so if there is no contact information in the other person's reply, I will not get their contact information. It bugs me to no end to have to go out and find a website with a main contact phone and then go through the phone tree just because this contact person can't bother to include that information in a signature. It's automatic. How hard is it?

The typical reason that I need phone numbers is because people are not responding to my emails (over days or weeks), so I think it's kind of an annoying catch-22 that phone number non-providers would expect me to email them for that info. No, by that time I'm emailing your boss directly. I suggest you include your phone number so I can chew you out instead of chewing your boss out first. I bet you'd prefer that.

If you have multiple jobs with multiple responsibilities, and you use Outlook (or most other email providers), you can set up multiple signatures. I think that the slight delay of choosing a different signature is much better than including 20 lines of irrelevant information.

Tag lines and images are vaguely annoying. Backgrounds, colored fonts, script fonts, quotations, etc. : these should all be abolished forever.
posted by aabbbiee at 2:46 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]

As a journalist, it cracks me up when people respond to my on-the-record questions with on-the-record answers, then have their corporate email accounts append a long "nothing in this email can be disseminated or shared because it's all proprietary" warning at the end.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 2:54 PM on February 6

Weighing in from film/TV, where signatures can be really helpful because people jump from job to job all the time.

Name
Title
Current Project
Contact Info At Current Project (I include studio/address and work phone)
Cell Phone

I think it's redundant to have your email address in, since obviously people are seeing this via receiving emails from you. But maybe in some situations it's useful?
posted by Sara C. at 3:12 PM on February 6

Whatever else you do, don't put image files in your signatures.

Yes, there is a special and particularly heinous circle of hell for people who use embedded jpgs as their email signature, or attach their vcard to every single email.
posted by elizardbits at 6:41 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

I put my email address in my sig because outlook makes it such a pain to see the email address of the sender if they are already in my address book-- which is my entire company of 25k people.

Mine is:

Elizeh Doolittle
Marketing Associate
WidgetWorld Productions
City State Zip( not that they will mail you much, but its nice to know where your correspondent is.)
Phone
Email
Department URL

I put stuff on separate lines because a lot of my contacts are responding via blackberry or iphone, and it seems cleaner on the little screen to go long instead of wide, and easier to tap to dial/open url, etc.

No fun font or images-- not even logos or slogans.
posted by elizeh at 8:11 PM on February 6

Ours changes occasionally to include marketing promotions but the basic signature is something like this:


Name

Department
Full Company Name Title
website


This email and its contents are subject to (Company title) corporate policies and may be subject to various disclaimers.
posted by Under the Sea at 8:11 PM on February 6

Personally? No signatures are necessary.

I've had several occasions where I've needed to phone someone but digging through their emails gives me no indication on what their mobile number is - which is extremely frustrating. Having said that, putting 10 lines of details is massive overkill.

I propose the following 1 line (maybe 2 if it wraps):

Name | Title | Company Name | m. +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx | www.website.com

It's all the information people need. If they want more, they can visit the website.
posted by mr_silver at 2:39 AM on February 7

I put stuff on separate lines because a lot of my contacts are responding via blackberry or iphone, and it seems cleaner on the little screen to go long instead of wide, and easier to tap to dial/open url, etc.

posted by elizeh at 1:11 PM on February 7 [+] [!]

I think this consideration is the new putting your contact number nearest to the beginning of a voicemail message as possible.

I dislike having lots of information on one line—it can be tricky to copy and paste, and the |s and \s look a little busy for my eyes.

Yes, there is a special and particularly heinous circle of hell for people who use embedded jpgs as their email signature, or attach their vcard to every single email.
posted by elizardbits at 11:41 AM on February 7 [1 favorite +] [!]

My personal bug bear is the obnoxious 'P Please consider the environment before printing this email' footer. It's stupid because it's useless (if you need to print emails, that line is not going to stop you) and stupid because of the weird first 'P'.
posted by oxford blue at 6:28 AM on February 9

In case you were wondering, the P is in the webdings font (pre-installed, unsurprisingly, on all Windows computers) which means it actually looks like a little house.

I definitely see a lot less printing of emails these days although whether this line in signatures contributed to that is debatable.
posted by mr_silver at 1:12 AM on March 3