Start here
Why you cannot see it #
Your email signature is added centrally, after your message leaves you. So when you are typing an email, there is nothing at the bottom. That is not a fault, and there is nothing for you to fix.
Your organisation uses a service that applies everybody's signature automatically. It sits between your mailbox and the outside world. Your message leaves your outbox plain, the signature is attached on the way through, and it arrives at the recipient complete.
It is done this way on purpose. It means everybody in the company has the same, correct signature, it is always up to date, and nobody has to build one themselves.
If you cannot see your signature while writing an email, everything is working correctly.
Reassurance
Checking what yours looks like #
If you want to see it for yourself, and most people do once, it takes about a minute.
- Send yourself an email Compose a new message to your own address, type anything, and send it.
- Look at the one that arrives The copy that lands in your inbox has the signature on it, exactly as your recipients see it.
- Check the details are right Your name, job title and phone number. If anything is wrong, see If something in it is wrong below.
Internal email sometimes gets a shorter signature than external email, which is deliberate. If you want to see exactly what a customer sees, send a message to a personal address and look at that.
Reassurance
Your Sent Items #
The copy saved in your Sent Items may not show the signature either. Again, the recipient still got it.
Your Sent Items copy is saved at the moment you press send, before the message passes through the service that adds the signature. So the copy you keep is the plain version, while the one that went out was complete.
There is an option that puts a signed copy back into your Sent Items so what you keep matches what you sent. Ask us and we can look at enabling it for your organisation.
Until then, the reliable way to check what somebody received is to look at a message you have sent to yourself, or at a reply where your original email is quoted underneath.
Important
Do not add your own #
The most common problem after go live is people with two signatures, because they made one themselves as well.
If you had a signature set up in Outlook before, it is still there, and it is still being added to your messages. Yours goes on first, then the company one is added on top, and your recipients get both. It looks untidy and it is the sort of thing customers notice.
Clear out your old signature in Outlook, on your computer, in webmail and on your phone. Any one of them that still has one will produce a duplicate.
If you are not sure how, or you cannot find where it is set, contact us and we will do it with you. It takes two minutes.
The default “Sent from my iPhone” counts. It will appear above your proper company signature, which rather undermines it. Clear it in your mail app settings.
Important
If something in it is wrong #
Your signature is built from your record in the company directory. If your job title or phone number is wrong there, it is wrong in your signature.
This is the bit that surprises people. You cannot edit your own signature, and that is by design. What you change instead is the underlying detail, and every future email picks it up automatically.
| What is wrong | What to do |
|---|---|
| Job title out of date | Tell us the correct one and we will update your record. |
| Wrong or missing phone number | Send us the number you want shown. |
| Name spelled wrong, or you now go by something else | Tell us what it should say. |
| Wrong office address | Let us know which office you are actually based at. |
| Logo looks stretched or blurry | That is the template rather than you. Tell us and we will fix it for everybody. |
| Something is missing entirely | Ask. Some fields are deliberately left out, but if you need one adding we can look at it. |
Worth sending yourself one email in your first week and reading your signature properly. A wrong job title goes out on every message you send until somebody mentions it, and the person who eventually mentions it is usually a customer.
Worth knowing
Replies, internal email and your phone #
A few things behave slightly differently, all of them on purpose.
- Replies may get a shorter signature. A full signature repeated on every reply makes a long thread hard to read, so replies within a conversation often get a briefer version.
- Internal email may look different. Colleagues generally do not need your logo and a legal disclaimer, so internal messages often use a short version, or none at all.
- Your phone gets the same signature. This is one of the better things about it. Emails sent from your mobile look exactly like emails sent from your desk, with no setting up.
- Webmail works too. Whether you use Outlook, the web version or your phone, the signature is added the same way, because it happens after the message leaves you.
- Banners come and go. You may see a promotional banner appear beneath your signature at certain times of year. Those are scheduled centrally and are nothing to do with your settings.
There is no app, no add-in and no setting for you to configure on any device. If somebody tells you to install something to make your signature work, check with us first.
Support
Common questions #
My signature has disappeared
It has not. You are looking at the compose window, where it has not been added yet. Send yourself an email and you will see it on the copy that arrives.
Can I have my own signature instead?
No, and that is the point. Everyone having the same, correct, up to date signature is why it is set up this way. If there is something you genuinely need in yours that is not there, ask us and we will see whether it can be added for your role.
Can I add a quote or a charity logo?
Ask, but the answer is usually no. Company signatures are consistent by design. If there is a campaign or a badge your organisation wants on everyone's email, that can be added centrally for the whole company.
A customer says my email had no signature
Worth telling us, since it usually means something needs looking at. Ask them roughly when it arrived and whether it was a new email or a reply, since replies sometimes use a shorter version that can look like nothing is there.
There are two signatures on my emails
You still have one set up manually somewhere. Clear it in Outlook, in webmail and on your phone. See Do not add your own above, and contact us if you cannot find where it is coming from.
I have started a new role. Will it update itself?
Not on its own. Tell us your new job title and we will update your record, and it will appear on your next email. Congratulations, incidentally.
Getting help
If your signature has the wrong details, you are getting two of them, or something simply looks off, get in touch and we will sort it. It is a quick fix at our end and it affects every email you send, so it is worth mentioning rather than living with.