Using I am all ears in a professional Email?

Before I ask the questions , here is a bit of context:

I am planning to email few of our customers asking for their feedback. This is what I plan to write

If you have any feature suggestion then let me know, I am all ears.

So my question is .. . does it comes across as too casual? Is this suited for a professional email?

Thanks in advance for all the answers!!

Ankit

Posted 2015-06-13T09:09:55.087

Reputation: 55

2I'm all ears is classified as informal on thefreedictionary.com. If you're e-mailing customers, you should stick to a more formal register and try to rephrase what you're saying. – Vlammuh – 2015-06-13T09:25:45.567

2Welcome to ELL Stack Exchange! It probably wouldn't hurt to add some more details on who your customers are, as well as their culture and the culture of your company. The answer could easily be different depending on the country. – DCShannon – 2015-06-13T09:51:12.107

1It depends on your company's brand image and the tone of your communications in general; the CEO of Mail Chimp might very well say they were all ears. – Tᴚoɯɐuo – 2015-06-13T11:36:12.060

It's not really that it's too informal; it's that it's the wrong metaphor for the medium. If you say "I'm all ears", it helps to be in the same room (within earshot) of the people you're saying it to! – Brian Hitchcock – 2015-06-13T12:33:38.637

1@Brian Hitchcock: that's taking the idiom rather literally, no? Would you object to his writing "We'd like to hear what you have to say"? – Tᴚoɯɐuo – 2015-06-13T12:46:23.030

No, I'd just assume they were planning an in-person meeting. – Brian Hitchcock – 2015-06-14T07:41:36.927

Thanks for the help guys!! Since I dont really know my users that well (yet), I guess sticking to a formal tone will be more approprirate – Ankit – 2015-06-15T07:14:38.370

Answers

It's a very colloquial phrase. It would be correct in the following context:

A. I know what happened to the missing sweets

B. I'm all ears

However, in a professional email, this is not particularly the best way to phrase it, as it seems quite unprofessional. You could try the following phrase:

If you have any suggestions then let me know, and I will be happy to take them into account.

There are many other ways that you could phrase this, but the sentence above would be fine in a formal email.

James Wirth

Posted 2015-06-13T09:09:55.087

Reputation: 1 373

I agree with the earlier comment; I think this phrase is too informal for an email to customers.

That said, I think this expression would be fine in an email to coworkers and colleagues, where a degree of informality is more acceptable. However, I'd probably use a dash instead of a comma:

If you have any feature suggestion then let me know – I'm all ears.

or I would leave out the "let me know" part, because that seems to be a bit redundant in this context:

If you have any feature suggestion, I'm all ears.

Back to your email to the customers – I think you are trying to convey an eagerness for their input. This could be accomplished by adding one word – the word please – to your initial statement:

If you have any feature suggestion then please let me know.

J.R.

Posted 2015-06-13T09:09:55.087

Reputation: 108 123

If you use 'any', isn't the singular a problem? I would say "have a feature suggestion" or "have any feature suggestions", but not "have any feature suggestion". It sounds like broken English to me. And I know this is an old question, but James edited it first! :) – ColleenV – 2016-06-01T17:17:57.163

I agree with parkgatedev, and disagree with J.R. It all depends on your customers and the sort of relationship you wish to develop with them. If you wish to keep the relationship formal, then by all means don't use "I'm all ears". If you wish to develop the relationship along more personal lines, then you can go with the phrase. Have you dealt with the customers you're emailing on a one-on-one basis over some period of time? Or are you dealing with customers you know only as names on a list? It's important to know your audience. If, for instance, your customer base is made up of recreational knitters (you sell knitting supplies) then they may be put off if you take a formal tone. If your customers are large corporations and you've never spoken to the buyers, they'll wonder about informality.

It all depends.

WhatRoughBeast

Posted 2015-06-13T09:09:55.087

Reputation: 4 265

I agree with how WhatRoughBeast disagrees with me. :^) We can only offer general advice here, and our opinions will vary based on past experiences, current cultures, and assumptions we make about the parties involved in the question. The O.P. is concerned with being "too casual" and unprofessional, so my answer errs on the side of caution. But not all client/customer relationships work the same, and there's often room to get away with a little bit of friendly informality. In the end, the person writing the email must weigh the risks and decide what to do, but there's room for dissent here. – J.R. – 2015-06-13T18:56:50.797