Do you receive e-mails, text messages, and tweets filled with acronyms you can’t decipher? You’re not alone; in fact, some companies now hire teenagers and young adults to teach their employees information-age shorthand.

Maybe it’s a sign of the times.  As a global population, we’re busier than ever before and the efficiencies gained through acronyms might be small but maybe make us feel like we are working faster.

Make sure your Internet lingo oblivion doesn’t lead to a virtual foot-in-mouth comment though, like the woman who thought LOL meant “lots of love.” She texted a friend, “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother passing away. LOL. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

To help you avoid situations like that, here’s a list of both sales- and workplace-related acronyms, as well as some more general online acronym lingo (used on blogs and in other social media channels).

HTH (Hope this helps)!

Sales Acronyms

CSAT: Customer Satisfaction (commonly referring to Customer Satisfaction Scores)

CRM: customer relationship management (typically referring to the technology that houses a variety of customer information items)

GAM: global account manager

KAM: key account manager

KPI: key performance indicator (metrics tracked to measure performance at various levels across the organization)

NPS: Net Promoter Score (customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reichheld)

PDA: personal digital assistant (typically referring to mobile devices and technologies)

RFP: request for proposal

SEC: Sales Executive Council (publisher of this blog, and producer of sales-related best practice research and advisory services)

SFA: sales force automation (typically referring to tools and technologies)

VOC: voice of (the) customer (commonly referring to customer survey results and verbatim)

Common around the Office

CEB: Corporate Executive Board, parent company of the Sales Executive Council

EOW: end of week (also, EOD: end of day)

EOB: end of business (also, COB: close of business)

EOM: end of message (less commonly, NFT, no further text); used as the only text in the body of an e-mail for which the subject line contains the full message

FAQ: frequently asked questions

FWIW: for what it’s worth (perhaps this is the updated version of FYI, for your information, or BTW, by the way?)

HTH: hope this helps

IMO: in my opinion (also, IMHO: in my honest opinion)

NSFW: not safe for work (commonly seen in the subject line of comic e-mails from co-workers who do not want you to get fired)

NWA: not work appropriate (see NSFW above)

OOO: out of office

POC: point of contact (or SPOC, single point of contact)

PTO: paid time off

ROI: return on investment

TIA: thanks in advance

TMI: too much information

YWIA: you’re welcome in advance

Seen In Social Media

ARE: acronym-rich environment

BRB: be right back (used in chat conversations when one steps away from the monitor)

LOL: laughing out loud

LMAO: laughing my a** off (NSFW)

ROTFL: rolling on the floor laughing (or ROFL in short)

ICYMI: in case you missed it

IOW: in other words

FWIW, Twitter has its own little language.  This list of Top Twitter Acronyms is very informative.

So…what did we miss?  What are your go-to time-saving acronyms?  Please share!

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