Email Still Rules in Business Communication

I would like to pay homage to the greatest technology tool currently in place throughout the business world—and that includes you insurers, too—email.

Businesses are fascinated by the latest communication tools found through social media, but too few of us ever point out how vital email is to the success of our business.

Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of problems with email. A friend of mine over in Nigeria is having trouble getting people to reply to his email messages that will enable him to give away thousands of dollars that are stuck in a bank somewhere. Then there was the email I received last week from “God Allah” that I felt bad about deleting.

Obviously, email is not hip compared to the social media tools in place, but while 140 characters is fine for random thoughts, it's not my preferred choice for serious discussions involving issues slightly more important than the fact the Olympics are finally over.

And get this, you can send email messages to specific individuals, not just post them on the Web and hope that your Twitter followers will have the time to go through a day's worth of tweets or—as some of us do—just ignore them.

I'm sure people ignore email sitting in their in-box. Plus, we always run into the possibility that companies are filtering out important messages because they look like spam. Censorship is a terrible thing.

In a report on how independent agents are using social media strategies for communication, Novarica principal Karlyn Carnahan wrote: “About 30 percent of insurers responded that they use social media for one-to-one communication with both agents and policyholders. This suggests that some of the critical communication that used to take place via telephone or email is migrating to social media platforms. This data is notably split by age, as 25 percent of agents under 40 report using LinkedIn to communicate with specific underwriters at their insurers, double the percentage of those over 40.”

Like many of you, I communicate through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, but when an important message has to be sent, I go to my email account. It's old, fast, familiar, and dependable. I hope social media tools have as long a shelf life as email has enjoyed.