According to blogger Cindy Alvarez, there are six kinds of angry emails, ranging from name-calling emails to “frustration-laden tirade emails.”
Most of us try to resist sending these types of messages, but sometimes the temptation is overwhelming. It’s easy to think that anger management can be just a click away.
But if you want to keep your friends, your job, and your sanity, but are prone to writing angry-sounding messages, take ToneCheck for a spin.
This temper-tracking tool professes to “stop email confusion before it happens.” The software, developed by Moncton-based company Lymbix, flags emotional words and phrases, and gives users a chance to make changes before hitting send.
Through a number of positive ratings, such as affection and amusement, to a number of negative ratings, such as fear and anger, the tool analyzes messages for “Tone Tolerance.” For example, their online demo identifies this example sentence as one that would prompt review.
“It is time to solidify matters or move on.”
ToneCheck describes these words as angry and offers the sender a chance to modify the tone within a preview window.
The email add-on is currently only available for Microsoft Outlook. During the beta release, ToneCheck is free. As for other compatibility beyond Windows, ToneCheck is working on supporting web-based clients.
I interviewed Matt Eldridge, founder and CEO of ToneCheck’s parent company, Lymbix.
Amber: How did you come up with the idea for ToneCheck?
Matt: I was a partner and Director of Franchising for a dotcom private sale real estate company, and I found I was good at closing deals face to face and over the phone, but when it came to emails I was losing deals. I found that the tone in my emails were being interpreted as aggressive or harsh and because of that, potential franchise buyers were walking away. I thought there must be a solution, some kind of tone checker that I could download into my email to help with this problem, but after a lot of research discovered there was no such solution. I then started to think about spellcheck and grammar check and really believed that a tone check could be the next step in the natural evolution of those tools.
And voila, ToneCheck was born.
Amber: How big of an issue are negative emails?
Matt: Emails that are seen as negative because tone has been misinterpreted are a very big problem. You have a 50/50 chance of somebody ascertaining the correct tone of your email message and seeing as billions of emails are sent each day, we are solving a very big problem. English as second language is a very lucrative market that I am also excited about, as connotation is lost in translation.
Amber: Where do you plan on developing your product next?
Matt: We will expand beyond Outlook as market demand increases. We chose Outlook strategically because of the client’s 500 million users. With that kind of market dominance it made the most sense to tackle that beast first. I have always wanted to build a company with mass market appeal and with our suite of solutions, I believe we will do just that.
Amber: What has been the response so far?
Matt: The response has been overwhelming, with amusement, contentment, excitement and gratitude topping the list . We are solving a problem that almost everyone can identify with and because of that we are starting to gain a lot of traction. We want to help the world communicate more clearly and for people to be truly understood!
