Jenny Morse, PhD
Author and CEO

If you read our January blog post, then you already know: Email is a slow, written conversation. Once you start that conversation, you will inevitably need to end it.

The closing is important because it marks the end of the message. It reassures the reader that they have received your complete thoughts, all that you intended to send them. For this reason, never put the closing in your signature block which is automatically added to your emails. The closing should not be in your signature block. [If you’re wondering who the bold is for, it’s for my brother. He runs a few companies and never does anything that I tell him to do. He also doesn’t read this blog.]

Since you have to add a closing yourself, you can be flexible in what you use. Standard formal closings are “Sincerely” and “Respectfully.” You can put those on absolutely any message. You can also use “Regards” and any of its pleasant adjective forms: “Best regards,” “Warm regards,” “Kind regards,” etc. Since “Regards,” while perfectly acceptable, can feel a bit stiff to some folks, I’ve seen a shift toward just the nice words: “Warmly,” “Kindly,” “Best.”

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I personally use “Best,” though I can only use it on messages that are neutral or positive. If I am giving someone bad news (usually an undergraduate who wants to make up an assignment they missed but hasn’t communicated with me for 3 weeks, so no, the opportunity to complete this work has passed), I switch to “Sincerely” because I do mean what I am writing honestly and using “Best” would be cruel.

With people you know better or work with more often, you can close the message with less formal phrases.

I use “Hope this helps” pretty often with students and clients. You could say “Hope you have a good/great day” or “Happy Monday/Friday” or “Have a good weekend” as your closing–with a comma or an exclamation mark.

Depending on your personality and relationship with the audience, you might choose something more personable, more fitting for who you are and how you communicate. Here are a few I’ve seen and liked: “Cheers,” “Aloha,” “Onwards,” “With Enthusiasm,” “Cheerfully,”.

Keep in mind that the origin of the closing word or phrase was meant to describe your tone as you wrote to the audience or to describe your relationship with the audience (i.e. “Yours truly”–which is generally not considered appropriate for business email). So, pick a word or phrase that you like and go with it.

Anyone reading this will at this point be wondering, what about “Thanks”? Yes, “Thanks” can be used in the closing space, but it should not be used on all emails. “Thanks” doesn’t make sense if the purpose of the email isn’t asking someone to do something or showing gratitude after they’ve completed a task. And in the first case, you should not thank people before they do something, it’s rude. “Thanks in advance,” while most people mean well when they use it, is in fact disrespectful. By thanking in advance, you are refusing any opportunity I may need to discuss the task, change the deadline, or prioritize all the tasks you’ve assigned me. It ends the conversation by *assuming* that I will do the thing you asked. And you know what they say about when we assume…

Additionally, a closing has to appear on almost every email. If “Thanks” is on all your emails, what does that say about your gratitude? It’s not very valuable. If you thank everyone for everything on every message, when you actually *mean* that you appreciate the person, they can’t feel your genuine gratitude. Once you’ve reached this point, you’ve ruined “Thanks” like the boy who cried wolf and now no one will believe you.

Keep “Thanks” for when you mean it and then make it specific: “Thank you for your help,” “Thanks for getting back to me,” “Thanks for answering my question,” “Thanks for getting that done,” etc. Use “Thank you” as a closing phrase that acknowledges what the person has done to help you so that your gratitude does have a specific and valuable meaning.

Hope this helps! ;)

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