Email Guidelines

Emails can be exchanged with any project team member during the period of engagement. The VENDOR is expected to follow these guidelines for all the team members who send and receive emails to and from the CLIENT.

1. All the emails sent to the CLIENT must contain a clear subject line describing the purpose of the email. Repetitive emails with similar subject lines must have the date attached to the subject in the format mm/dd/yyyy. E.g. – “Project Update – 02/17/2016”
2. The VENDOR must manage email communication efficiently. Instead of flooding the CLIENT’s inbox with multiple/bulk mail (individual mail for individual response), the best practice is to club responses for various queries/replies and send across in a single mail. This would not only prevent loss of important communication amidst bulk emails but also save the client from frustrations due to dealing with large volume of emails which appears clumsy and unprofessional.
3. Vendors must ensure that all the email content including the subject line has checked for spelling and grammar before sending the email. Vendors are encouraged to use programs such as Microsoft Word to perform spelling and grammar checks.
4. All the CLIENT emails must be responded within 24 business hours from the date and time of receipt. Every email communication must be closed at the the VENDOR’s end. This means that if the CLIENT email simply contains a piece of information that does not require a meaningful response, the VENDOR must still acknowledge the receipt of the email by responding with a polite thank you or a similar phrase.
5. The VENDOR must always be professional and respectful in all the email communications with the CLIENT. The VENDOR must stay away from argumentative communication over project requirements or issues and in case certain issues seem difficult to get resolved via email communication then the VENDOR must request a meeting session with the CLIENT or involve senior members of the project team for assistance.
6. The VENDOR must maintain a checklist of all the individuals that need to be copied in an email on various respective subject matters.
7. The VENDOR must ensure that all email responses are issued by “Replying to All”. This is extremely important to keep all the involved parties in the communication loop at all times.