CC'ing Best Practices

Somewhat in tune with a blog I posted last week, we had a client reveal to us today that they receive over 300 emails in a day of which almost 3/4's of them were CC's from either managers, VP's regionals, etc.

Can we get some insight on this topic please. Why does this take place? Is this policy? How much time is wasted as a result?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Jonathan,
Our company is most certainly guilty of this CC'ing crime. The partners and their managers CC each other on almost everything. Why does this happen? The original premise was so that the partners could double check the facts and statements of the others - but now it is unspoken policy. What are you thoughts in regards to breaking this habit without everyone feeling "left in the dark"? (Great topic btw)

-Trevor

As a general rule, I do not do CC's when I send emails, unless it is for a specific purpose. If my boss sends me an email with a bunch of recipients, that needs a response from ME, I will respond to HIM only (unless requested otherwise).... If it needs to go elsewhere, I will let him do it. If I am sending out an email to multiple vendors (say I am looking for a bid for a project), I will compose it, and use the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) function.

When I send my responses, I usually delete the original message from the response; while maintaining the subject.

If I ever do a forward that contains senders from outside, I delete those email addresses.

Thanks Trevor and Johnny for your comments. I really hope many can weigh in on this subject. If you are CC'ing-- then why? If you don't have a company policy on this--should you? Are you CC'ing emails to just protect yourself? If that is the case then what are you protecting yourself from in your company and does this truly help?

I have a feeling this is where Google Wave will kick in with the way its platform works. But if we are already guilty of unnecessary emails, that needs to change first.

Exactly why wave will take over at some point. Right now it's a necessary evil that can get abused, but I don't blame others. In general, many companies have issues and breakdowns in communication that negatively effect business. The cc can help reduce those breakdowns imo. Just ebrace it (until wave goes mainstream) and create a strategy or rule to filter them.

Sorry to say that many CC's are CYA's - some warranted and most not. Seems to me that whoever NEEDS to know should be in the "To" field and if you need to keep a record of threads, create an email box for that - "[email protected]" that other people can access as needed or appropriate. The problem I have with internal bcc's is that some people think other people should get a copy and you can end up getting multiple copies from well meaning people who don't know I got the original bcc! At CallSource we have been using a cloud collaboration tool for projects and we give access to people as necessary for the project - it has cut down on lots of cc's! Hope this helps, Doug

I understand you; I only use the BCC function for addresses outside the company, like in the scenario I mentioned earlier.

When I am sent an email and the sender cc'd others in their organization, I usually respond to all since I assume they want those people to be aware of the content of the email thread.

Yet, I have learned to never assume that just because someone was cc'd they actually read the email.

Doug - would you mind sharing the name of the cloud source program you are speaking of? Or is it proprietary? I would absolutely LOVE to get all my people off the CC addiction...and I do not think Wave is the way...yet.

-Trevor

We are using Basecamp - works very well and is very easy to use and administer. Info here: basecamphq.com

PS - we don't get a toaster if anyone signs up