One thing I find irritating is when I’m in an email conversation with a new connection and it’s time to talk live, instead of continuing the back and forth, and I can’t find their phone number. This happens rather frequently when people choose to not include their signature when they reply to or forward an email. If I don’t have their contact stored (and it is common that I’ll want to call someone new who is not in my contact list), then I have to search my inbox for an email that they originated that contains their signature. Either that or send another email asking for the phone number, and wait for their reply. I know we’re only talking about minutes of extra time. Still, why spend minutes on a task that you shouldn’t need to.

Every email system I’m aware of has an option to include signatures in your reply. Granted, this can also get annoying when you have an email thread that has gone back and forth ten, twenty, thirty times – and there are as many signatures at the bottom. However, I think the usually dead weight at the end of that chain (that doesn’t get in the way) proves it’s worth when everyone’s contact info can be found easily within that thread.

I encourage everyone to include signatures, even on forward and reply, to be more courteous to your new connections when it’s time to move the conversation from email to live voice.