IT’S SOMETHING WE all overthink. What’s the appropriate way to sign off an email during professional communication?
A few offerings include:
- Thanks,
- Many thanks,
- Sincerely,
- Best wishes,
- Best regards,
But are they too formal? Too informal?
It’s a tough call.
What?
Well, we might finally have an answer. Email etiquette expert (yes, that’s a thing) Judith Kallos told Bloomberg that the worst sign off is simply, ‘best’.
Best is benign. It works when you apparently don’t know what else to use.
So basically, every time, then?
While emails initially had no sign off, business etiquette coach Barbara Pachter said formalities began creeping back in.
Kind regards is deemed too formal, and means the opposite. Warm regards is just needy.
‘Cheers’ is dubbed the perfect passive-aggressive sign off, while ‘yours’ is just creepy.
So what should you sign off with? Nothing, is the conclusion. Simply sign off with a full stop.
When you put the closing, it feels disingenuous or self-conscious each time. It’s not reflective of the normal way we have conversation.
However, etiquette expert William Hanson told The Independent that you should still sign off with someone you don’t know with ‘yours sincerely’ if you know their name, and ‘yours faithfully’ if you don’t.
So now.
