Globally Speaking

Delay and nondelivery occur somewhat more frequently in international email than in domestic email. Play it safe with your most important email: Confirm the receipt of messages.

Radio and walkie-talkie operators traditionally say Roger or Copy to indicate their receipt of a message. In email, the equivalent is to ask your recipient Please confirm receipt and, conversely, to reply to an incoming email with a short sentence like I received your email and will get back to you soon with a complete reply.

If your email software includes an auto-confirm option, you might want to use it. This feature automatically asks your recipient to confirm receipt by clicking in a pop-up dialog box that appears when he or she opens your message. (Note that this feature confirms receipt of only the email itself, not of any attached files that you send with it.)