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A two-letter sign-off can say a lot about the person behind an email. While “V/R” may look like a simple abbreviation, it carries a long history of professionalism, hierarchy, and respect.
But is it the right choice for every workplace? Understanding what V/R means and when to use it can help you choose an email ending that matches the situation.
V/R is a shortened form of “Very Respectfully.” It is used at the end of an email or written message to show courtesy and professionalism.
Although many people think of V/R as part of an email signature, it is technically an email closing (also called a complimentary close). It appears immediately before the sender's signature, which typically includes their name, job title, company, and contact details.
The abbreviation is particularly common in environments where communication follows established traditions, such as military organizations, government agencies, and workplaces with clear professional structures. For example, a service member may use V/R when communicating with a superior officer or within a formal chain of command.
The phrase reflects a long-standing tradition of showing respect through written communication. While “Very Respectfully” and “Respectfully” have similar meanings, V/R generally carries a stronger sense of formality and is often used when acknowledging the recipient’s position or authority.
To know more about different phrases for signing off, have a look at our guide on formal email!
V/R is mainly used by organizations where professional etiquette and communication standards are important. However, its use depends less on the industry itself and more on the workplace culture.
Some professional environments use V/R to maintain a consistent and respectful tone, especially when employees communicate with senior leaders, officials, clients, or external partners.
Common examples include:
The right choice depends on whether the recipient understands the abbreviation and whether it fits the organization’s communication style. In a workplace with a more casual culture, a simpler closing may feel more natural.
Choosing the right email closing depends on your audience, the purpose of the message, and the tone you want to create.
V/R is one of the most formal email sign-offs. It is best suited for situations where professionalism, tradition, or hierarchy are important.
Use V/R when:
For example, V/R may be appropriate in military, government, or protocol-driven environments. However, it may feel too formal in everyday workplace conversations.
“Warm Regards” creates a professional but open tone. It is useful when you want to maintain a friendly relationship while remaining respectful.
This closing works well for:
“Best Regards” is one of the most widely used professional email closings. It is neutral, polite, and suitable for most business situations.
It works well for:
Because it is balanced between formal and friendly, it is often a safe option when you are unsure which closing to choose.
Other common alternatives include:
The best email ending is not necessarily the most formal one. It should match the context, the relationship with the recipient, and the overall tone of the message.
A good email ending reinforces your message and helps create the right impression. Whether you are writing to colleagues, clients, or potential clients, these tips can help you choose the right closing.
Consider who you are writing to and why you are contacting them. A formal message may require V/R or “Respectfully,” while a regular business email may be better suited to “Best Regards” or “Kind Regards.”
The sign-off should reflect the expectations of your industry and relationship with the recipient.
Some expressions may be familiar in certain professions but confusing to others. For example, V/R may be immediately understood by someone with military experience but unfamiliar to another reader.
Choosing a clear and recognizable closing helps your message feel professional and approachable, just like creating the right professional email signature!
Your closing should match the rest of your email. A casual message followed by an extremely formal sign-off can feel unnatural.
For example, a marketing email designed to build relationships with potential clients may benefit from a warmer closing rather than a highly formal one.
Professional does not always mean formal. Using V/R in every email may create unnecessary distance, especially in workplaces with a more conversational culture.
Reserve highly formal closings for situations where they add value. If you have worked with someone for a long time, a simpler and more personal sign-off may be more appropriate.
Your email signature represents you and your organization. The closing you choose should reinforce the impression you want to create.
For example:
To better understand this important touchpoint, take some time to explore our email signature glossary.
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The right email sign-off depends on your audience, workplace culture, and the message you want to convey. Whether it is "V/R", "Warm Regards" or "Best Regards", choosing a closing that feels natural and appropriate helps create clearer, more professional communication.
Want to improve your email communication skills? Learn more about email etiquette and discover how to use the right practices for every situation.
Yes, with the 'Campaigns' offer, it is possible to track the number of clicks on the email signatures of all your employees in the 'Statistics' area of the platform.
You can then access a detailed or global view of the number of clicks on the email signatures of each employee. You can use the search option to target a specific signature or a given period. Finally, you have the possibility to export all statistics to an Excel document.
If you launch campaigns with banners inserted in your email signatures, you can also access their performance via this same space.
With Letsignit, you can easily add social network icons in your collaborators' email signatures and link to your company pages. Also, our "attributes" feature allows you to manage personalized URLs for each of your collaborators such as their individual LinkedIn profile.
And that's not all: you can add links to an appointment-setting application, allow your customers to leave reviews easily, and integrate our 'Chat on Teams' widget to let anyone start a discussion via Microsoft Teams chat.
It’s up to you! As an administrator of the Letsignit platform, you choose whether or not to grant modification rights to your employees. These permissions are managed on an attribute-by-attribute basis, which means that you can decide to allow the employee to change their phone number, but not the address of your premises, for example.
This feature applies to all attributes in your directory, including custom attributes created on Letsignit. When your employees change one or more attributes, your directory is obviously not affected.
It often happens that employees make their email signature their own: custom format, bad fonts, colors inconsistent with the brand standards... all of this has an impact on your brand!
A consistent visual identity is considered authentic and outperforms a perceived weak one by 20%. And, your customers are 2.4 times more likely to buy your products.
With Letsignit, take back control over your brand identity by standardizing all your email signatures. Our tool has many features that allow you to customize your signatures by department, by audience or by subsidiary. Not to mention the possibility of carrying out campaigns within your email signatures thanks to our Campaign offer.
What is the user experience like for our employees?
In both cases:
In short, they have autonomy in their email signature, but you keep control on the field, signatures, and banners they can edit or use.
With our "multi-signature" feature, your employees can benefit from multiple email signatures. No technical manipulation is required. Thanks to our Add-in for Outlook or the desktop app, they can change their email signatures as they wish with just a few clicks.
Regarding the creation of email signatures, you can make several variations such as:
Everything has been thought of to go further in the personalization process based on the recipient of your emails.
If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.
As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:
As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.
If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.
As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:
As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.
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