Ending Emails With Certain Variation Of Thank You Vastly Improves Response Rate, Study Finds (inc.com) 113
An anonymous reader shares an Inc article: The folks at Boomerang, a plug-in for scheduling emails, did a little study to see how the language people use to close their emails has any effect on the response rate. "We looked at closings in over 350,000 email threads," data scientist Brendan Greenley wrote on the Boomerang blog, "And found that certain email closings deliver higher response rates." But do all emails need a response? Not necessarily. That's why Boomerang ran a variation of the test that looked at threads whose initial email contained a question mark, meaning the initiator of the conversation was likely looking for a reply. The answer? Those that express gratitude. "Emails that closed with a variation of thank you got significantly more responses than emails ending with other popular closings," Greenley writes. Here are the exact numbers: Emails that ended in Thanks in advance had a 65.7% response rate. Of emails that ended in Thanks, 63.0% got responses. The third most effective closing was Thank you with a 57.9% response rate. Boomerang has shared the kind of emails it accessed and how.
Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:5, Funny)
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Cosigned.
kthx
Re:Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:5, Insightful)
In just, common, every day interaction with people...saying "Thank You" and the like gets you SO far...and for some reason, basic politeness has gone to hell in the US.
When I'm in a restaurant, I constantly say thank you, when the server brings me something or does something. Amazing how saying thank you and giving a smile seems to get you better service, and often at bars, MUCH better drinks. Tipping helps there too.
But my one complaint is...people these days, rarely seem to respond to a "Thank you" with a "Your Welcome", it seems so much of the time is is the (what I think is lazy sounding or less polite". "No Problem".
I'm not sure when that one took over.
But really, its amazing what doors can open up to you, or what people will do for you..if you just catch their eyes, smile and say "Thank You"....hold a door open for someone....I tell ya, maybe its because basic manners and civility have disappeared so much in popular culture, its amazing how people react positively and light up when you yourself use basic manners, are friendly, civil, and actually thankful when someone does something nice.
Re: Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:3)
Re: Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't consider myself old (early 30s). I sometimes say "no problem" or "no worries" in response to a thank you ... but specifically, it's when I'm doing something to fix something that someone else did, or cover for them, that sort of thing. In other words, I'm trying to communicate that it wasn't a problem for me to help them out.
As opposed to responding to thankfulness for something "nice" or "kind," which would get something along the lines of the traditional "you're welcome."
Using the restaurant example, I wouldn't expect "no problem" to a "thank you" unless they were like, cleaning up something I spilled or something. If I said thank you for them bringing my food to the table and they said "no worries," that'd be a bit weird.
So yeah, I view it as being some what more communicative. It's not just "you're welcome," it's "no problem, don't worry about it/feel bad, it wasn't a big deal." Which doesn't make sense in all contexts, but I think it does in some.
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if a store clerk told me to have a "blessed day", it would probably evoke the same feelings in me as if said clerk stared inappropriately at my daughter.
You need to stop pushing your religious views and fears on others. Crazy Anti-theists like you are why I have to bless the water park pumps in secret and subliminally mix the Lord's prayer into the PA system to get everyone of those Jews and other heathens baptized.
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You heard "Merry Christmas" more this year than in previous years? It seems like it wasn't too many years that Bill O'Reilly invented the "War on Christmas". Comedians had fun mocking him because, you know, everybody still said Merry Christmas despite his angry rants to the contrary. I guess all it took was an even angrier man to claim even louder that there was a war on Christmas---but don't worry, we won!---before everybody "remembers" it actually happening. I guess next week we'll all suddenly remember how we've always been at war with Eastasia, whereas Eurasia has always been our ally. If we're lucky, unemployment might even drop to 15%!
I, like most every non-unicorn-riding American, have no problem with the phrase Merry Christmas. However, if a store clerk told me to have a "blessed day", it would probably evoke the same feelings in me as if said clerk stared inappropriately at my daughter.
Actually,if they said that, I'd be looking for their mennonite hat hid under the customer service desk..."Goodbye.. Kind sir.. and have a blessed day" "And, please do not trip over my dead mother on your way out"! Frankly, it reminds me of most of Steven King's novels...
But, as concerns "Merry Christmas", Merry Xmas is as offensive to Christians as if you told a Jewish person "Happy Hanky" instead of "Hannukah:". "Christmas" , after all, is a "Christian" holiday.. Don't li
Re: Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:2)
Wait, people actually say "ecks-muss"? They're poorly informed.
The "X" is used because it looks similar to the Greek "Chi," and is the closest letter chosen to represent "Christ." In the early to mid nineteen hundreds, it was suggested by several style guudes that "Xmas" be used as an abbreviated way to /write/ "Christmas" in places where space was limited, like store sign boards and such. It's been used that way for centuries, though. And it's not pronounced as an "x"; the word is still pronounced "Christm
Re: Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:4, Funny)
there is even several stores whose employees say "have a blessed day"
What's the point of you Americans having a great gun culture if you aren't allowed to shoot people who say things like that?
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You're overthinking it. Just take the Australian approach where EVERYTHING is "no worries mate".
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Re:Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:5, Funny)
But my one complaint is...people these days, rarely seem to respond to a "Thank you" with a "Your Welcome"
That's because they're busy responding with a, "You're welcome."
*ducks*
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>people these days, rarely seem to respond to a "Thank you" with a "Your Welcome" you're*
Lots of them are the diluted variety that doesn't actually mean "Thank you", much like how there's a certain version of "How are you" that you're never supposed to genuinely answer, only acknowledge with the word Fine, making for an absolute waste of three seconds with absolutely meaningless babble - it's meant to be ritualistic, a gesture. And there's no hard way to distinguish it from a sincere query besides the me
Re:Basic ettiquette pays I guess (Score:5, Interesting)
"You're welcome" can come across as slightly arrogant. As in, "you are right to show gratitude for the generosity I have shown". Conversely, "no problem" and "no worries" can be interpreted as "no need to thank me, any reasonable person would have done the same" and conveys humility.
I suspect I'm not the only one who feels some variant of this, whether it is conscious or not. probably due to people of the previous generations using "you're welcome" pointedly when people forget to say thank you.
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How is "No problem" less polite than "You are welcome"? To me, you are welcome has a connotation that I was expecting thanks from you (which is really kind of impolite), while "no problem" or "don't mention it" imply that you are really diminishing the effort that it caused you so that the thanker should not feel in too much of a debt. I think either of those two are actually more polite than "you are welcome".
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But my one complaint is...people these days, rarely seem to respond to a "Thank you" with a "Your Welcome", it seems so much of the time is is the (what I think is lazy sounding or less polite". "No Problem".
I'm not sure when that one took over.
Could be part of the changing landscape of language or it could simply be multi-culturalsim. You will rarely get a "you're welcome" in Australia with usually some variation of "no worries" coming back. The key part is to understand that language has inherent cultural bias. What is said in one language may sound strange in another (even if it's a common language like English).
One other variation that took me by surprise is in some European countries where the old formal variant of "if it pleases you" has res
A specific variation has 80% response rate for me (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience, a specific variation on "thank you" has an even higher response rate than any in the study. Faster responses, too.
At least for business emails, there is a very high response rate if I say:
Thanks, dickhead.
Of course there is also a very high irate rate, but they sure do respond!
Be nice to get nice (Score:2)
Ending with "thanks" is weird (Score:4, Insightful)
I find emails that end with some variation of "thank you" are often badly worded and sound funny, like the person just set "thank you, Jo Bloggs" as their standard template and didn't really mean it when they apologized for not finishing the TPS report on time.
Re:Ending with "thanks" is weird (Score:5, Insightful)
The strange thing about politeness is that it doesn't have to be sincere, or even perceived as sincere, to be effective. You don't really think that people receiving all those old timey "Your obedient servant," closings thought they were getting tenders of free labor, do you?
I think rituals of politeness have the same kind of "signalling value" that Superbowl ads do. There's no obvious reason that a company buying a Superbowl ad should make anyone want to buy their product, but they work because the investment itself signals a kind of robustness for the brand. Likewise a polite valediction signals to the recipient that you regard him as someone who should be treated with respect -- or at least expects to be treated with respect.
A lot of those rituals of politeness disappeared in the 60s, where it was cool and hip to be informal, and treat everybody like a friend. But I think we lost a kind of dynamic range in our culture, the ability to express degrees of respect or intimacy. It sets my teeth on edge when a vendor makes a cold call and asks to talk to "Matt," as if he was a buddy of mine. I am not your buddy, I am someone whom familiarity with is something you need to earn.
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Back in the day we included greetings to other groups in our software. Then we started including fuckings for people we didn't like. Simpler times.
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Mate! That's a cultural thing that many people will not be familiar with. If your name is Matthew? Well in some countries you are just Matt. In some places you will be Herr Doktor, and the former countries are much more pleasant to work in.
Novelty (Score:2)
A novel ending is more likely to be noticed and its contents noted.
Picard: Who the fuck reads to the end of an email? (Score:2, Offtopic)
That would be like clicking on TFA on a Slashdot submission. If the gist of the request isn't in the first sentence or so I usually just delete the thing.
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People who get everything wrong because of failure to RTFM
Ass Backwards (Score:3)
Emails ending in 'thank you' and friends get more responses because they likely contain some explicit prompt for a reaction/action, otherwise i wouldn't be expressing my gratitude in the first place, duh.
Fucking news at 11.
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can you elaborate on this?
thanks in advance
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Only if it really is the needful.
Kind retards,
Bazorg.
Interesting (Score:2)
You are probably getting paid though (Score:3)
> Anyone able to dig up just stats on support emails for Pidgin? I would hope that is 100% responses due to it being a support email. I can tell you within my support department, it doesn't matter what I end my email in; We have 100% response rate.
Based on my experience with corporate support email addresses, I'd venture to guess a typical "good" response rate is more like 90%-95%; emails get lost in all sorts of ways, before amd after they can make it to ticket system. Some get caught up in spam filte
Neckbeard Bigly (Score:5, Interesting)
Being blunt, rude, pushy, etc. fails far more often than it works in my experience, being somebody who by nature is "straight forward". The few times it has worked it usually creates a longer-term resentment; i.e. burning bridges.
That's why a certain political figure has puzzled me. He's done the opposite of what both my parents and experience have taught in terms of getting along and cooperation. Yet, it got him far (so far).
I don't get it. Maybe in some cases tribalism trumps manners (no pun intended).
Re:Neckbeard Bigly (Score:4, Informative)
Context. Everyone, left and right, are getting sick to death of PC and Trump blatantly ignored it - mocked it. Being polite and civil never works in the middle of a fight and the PC crowd had stepped from annoying to confrontational to open conflict years ago. I sincerely hope the PC culture continues to implode like a domino spiral.
Re:Neckbeard Bigly (Score:4, Insightful)
PC appropriateness is relative. For example, if I called a Trump-voting evangelical a "sky-man-fairy-tale-worshiping nutcase" they will have a fit. That's my non-PC way of describing their religion.
Those who dish it out often cannot take it themselves. Rather than have an escalating non-PC mouth fight, it's usually better to attempt PC.
Non-PC is great for venting, lousy for civilized society. Say it in your closet to get it out of your system. So far it appears Trump's non-PC is backfiring on the larger scale. I'll be very surprised if it works in the longer run.
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PC appropriateness is relative. For example, if I called a Trump-voting evangelical a "sky-man-fairy-tale-worshiping nutcase" they will have a fit. That's my non-PC way of describing their religion.
No, that'd just be you being an asshole. If on the other hand, if they demand that Trump-voting evangelicals were callled "worshippers of a higher supreme being of the god of mankind" and if you don't then you're a bigot. You'd have a point.
If you can't figure out the difference between the two, you probably understand less of just how infected PC culture has become as a form of "gotcha grievance mongering." Which is then also used to target peoples jobs, lifestyles, and anything else that the PC crowd g
Re:Neckbeard Bigly (Score:5, Insightful)
PC appropriateness is relative. For example, if I called a Trump-voting evangelical a "sky-man-fairy-tale-worshiping nutcase" they will have a fit. That's my non-PC way of describing their religion.
No, that'd just be you being an asshole.
Nope, you're just demonstrating that the Anti-PC crowd are a bunch of whiny hypocrites.
It seems you want the capability to complain about things you don't like whilst everyone else has to silently accept what you support... Which is ironically what the Anti-PC crowd complains about. The GP insulted your precious Trump whilst the GGP held up Trumps insults to others as a prime example of being Anti-PC.
Also he was being very polite, my Scottish relatives describe Trump as a "Cheeto-faced buttplug".
Calling someone or something PC has just become a way of saying "I don't like what he said but I cant form a rational argument against it". Ultimately, the Anti-PC crowd are the ones telling me what I'm not permitted to say. If you cant see a difference between PC and Anti-PC these days... you've got a good grasp on the situation.
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Nope, you're just demonstrating that the Anti-PC crowd are a bunch of whiny hypocrites.
It seems you want the capability to complain about things you don't like whilst everyone else has to silently accept what you support... Which is ironically what the Anti-PC crowd complains about. The GP insulted your precious Trump whilst the GGP held up Trumps insults to others as a prime example of being Anti-PC.
Zing and miss. The difference since you still haven't figured it out, is I'm not demanding that you change your speech. I'm just calling you an asshole.
The difference to continue with the rest of your post is that "political correctness" pushes people to censor their views. Either by public or private pressure because a view point is considered "undesirable." This is something you don't seem to get, while also claiming the whole "GP insulted your precious trump." And while your view is wildly off base,
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PC appropriateness is relative. For example, if I called a Trump-voting evangelical a "sky-man-fairy-tale-worshiping nutcase" they will have a fit. That's my non-PC way of describing their religion.
No, that'd just be you being an asshole.
You pretty much made his point there. Being PC is using language in a way so as not to offend people with a different point of view. I would agree with his assessment of religion, but I'm not going to say that to a religious person unless they try to pester me with their nonsense. Life is too short to get into pointless arguments.
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You pretty much made his point there.
No, actually I didn't. You believe my view to be an attempt to censor his. It's not, I'm just calling them an asshole. There's no threat looming overhead, no self-censorship. No demands, no public pressure. And there's the difference, if you can figure it out.
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Demand? How does that work? Why is demandativity the key? Who made that rule?
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Demand? How does that work?
"Do as I say, or I'm going to ruin your life."
Why is demandativity the key? Who made that rule?
The same people who decided that if you don't bow to their version of speech, they'll ruin your life. For example: Having the opinion that gay marriage is bad or funding a proposition against it. Note what happened there for Brandon Eich? Need a few more examples over the last year of people who've said something unpopular and the pc police have gone after their families, jobs and so on.
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PC police? I'm not following. Do you have a more specific instance as an example?
I agree there are stupid trolls on BOTH sides who get carried away. There are stupid lefties and stupid righties. There are good ways to protest and bad ways.
As far as legislation, gay people are understandably not being to be very happy about anti-gay legislation.
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sick to death of PC and
Actually, everyone is sick to death of people who are complaining about PC.
PC has become a byword for "something I don't like, but I cant form a rational argument against". Its used by people who are often bigoted to attempt to shut down arguments against their bigotry. To be frank, it's lost all it's power because it's just been too overused.
The thing is, PC isn't about politeness, it is, by a strict definition enforcing a political orthodoxy. The irony of this is, the anti-PC crowd are actually more
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As has been speculated in many places, people are quite sick of the phony smiles and phony concern of the phony politicians who give you a phony handshake and express their phony grieve about your circumstances while at the same time making your situation even worse with every policy they have available. A person who says what he thinks is real, and that is what appeals to many people.
Also, some politicians care more about other countries and other people than they care about their own. It's lovely if they
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Being blunt, rude, pushy, etc. fails far more often than it works in my experience, being somebody who by nature is "straight forward". The few times it has worked it usually creates a longer-term resentment; i.e. burning bridges.
This. Straight forward means getting to the point, not waffling on about superfluous information and going on and on about things not related. it does not mean you are rude or pushy, you will still use some basic rules of politeness but you wont go to extremes. Nothing annoys me more than reading an email that waffles on and on without making a point. I mean for crying out loud, you'd think some people were paid by the word. Usually these people are trying to hide what they're saying (like so many communiqu
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Because that's not the way he actually is.
Because it's not the way GWBush is (I know people who've met him, they say he's incredibly intelligent and for somme reason you like him the instant he walks up to you and says hello)
Because it's not the way ANY of these figureheads, pop icons, or anyone, are. They use the emotion of the masses to get what they want, they know they have to do that. Any office politician should know that (whether they can do it is another thing), but they have to work a different ma
Um... (Score:2)
Always close emails politely. (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck off.
Sincerely,
nitehawk214
Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Insightful)
It's simpleminded to assume "Thank you" *caused* the result. People who say thank you probably write more politely in general throughout their communications.
Unless the experiment controlled for this (e.g. by asking participants to add/remove "thank you" after having already composed their email), there is no implication that saying "thank you" will give you the same result.
It might be a good idea, but this study doesn't demonstrate that in any scientific way.
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Reading is hard:
After doing some sleuthing, we realized our findings actually reaffirm a 2010 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled “A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way.” In this Grant & Gino study, 69 college student participants got one of two emails asking for help with a cover letter. Half received an email that with a line that included “Thank you so much!” The other half got a similar email, sans an expression of gratitude. The study found that recipients were more than twice as likely to offer assistance when they received the email that included “thank you.”
Re:Correlation != Causation (Score:5, Informative)
Reading is hard:
Especially when the original link goes to a paywalled inc.com page with a click-bait headline "Ending Your Emails With This 1 Word ..." Fuck 'em.
At the end of the summary now is a proper link to the original source, and it is clear they jumped to unscientific conclusions from their data.
Only later, did they find an actual proper scientific study with experimental data, rather than just a correlation with other obvious contributing factors.
e.g. people say thanks when a reply is more important. ie people already knew intuitively what the article is claiming to have discovered.
It highly depends what you want from me (Score:2)
If you end in "thank you" after asking me to do something that I should be doing anyway as part of my job, I'd actually consider it very polite that you thank me for doing my job, and I will of course do my best to deliver the best I could. "Please fix this problem for us which is in your job description that you should do it. Thanks a lot for your aid!". Love it! Thank you for being polite!
Saying "thank you" in a mail where you ask something from me that is by no means certain that I have to or even should
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Agreed. There is nothing worse than someone giving you a "leaping monkey" and ending the message with "Thank you in advance".
Most of the time, they're trying to offload a task on me that is their responsibility.
I'd much prefer a two way conversation vs. lobbing something over the fence to me.
These were most notable with the "working from home" bunch that didn't want to come in to do their job.
It's nice, up to a point (Score:5, Funny)
In Canada, politeness is said to cost us about 32% productivity for all those "Thank you" emails going back and forth. It's more of a game about who's going to stop replying first.
Thank you very much for reading my comment.
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At the risk of sounding non-Canadian, I do not watch NHL games. And for that, I apologize.
Thank you for replying to my comment.
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No, thank you for the comment.
opening (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Urgent action required!"
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manipulative bullshitting (Score:1)
Idiots spend so much time manipulating the fucking shit out of each other that they are genuinely offended by honesty. Fuck them all to hell.
Thank's for the help I know you will give (Score:3)
If it gets good results, I guess that explains why I occasionally get emails that end that way.
In general, they annoy me. The implication is that I have no choice, I'm going to help them no matter what. Ugh.
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Usually it is completely infuriating. Sometimes I get a rotation with one of the ship captains and this guy is impossible to work with. His sentence structure is:
"Do this job X thank you."
Usually X is not even my job, and secondly this "thank you", means exactly as you said: "you are going to do it anyway".
Fcuk these bastards.
Thanks in advance??? (Score:2)
I must be a sociopath.
uncertain? (Score:1)
Why the fuck does the heading contain the word "certain"?
Well (Score:2)
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In German 'fick du' is much less polite than 'ficken sie'.
Now we have clickbait titles on slashdot? (Score:2)
Common editors, don't turn this into buzzfeed...
ratio & proportion & enlightenment (Score:2)
The success of those 'thank you's is closely related to a subtle element in the original email: I WANT SOMETHING FROM YOU.
Have you noticed that the ratio of emails offering to give you something of value are outweighed by those that want something? So long as people want and want, and still want more ... they will ask you for it. Some portion of them will add 'thanks' as an afterthought. How nice.
Your guru will not say thanks. He will not ask for anything. He knows that having things will tie him to the mat
Reciprocity (Score:2)
I hate to say this but many including myself are aware that people especially those trained in advanced sales are disingenuous. They are effectively trained sociopaths that do things with no normal human behavioral intent. They know what reciprocity is and they offer something of no value to you hoping that you will reciprocate in kind with something of value to them. It only works on people who lack the ability to meta think or are very bad at it.
Some day I fear if we keep playing these "games" we are g
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There really are only three types of conversation I can have with you: I can offer to exchange or exchange something of value with you (e.g. cash for goods), I can ask something of value from you (e.g. time, donations), or we can exchange meaningless platitudes. I know that is a very basic way to look at it, but the exchange is the whole point of having a conversation, even if the exchange is of knowledge.