Communicating Persuasively, Email or Face-to-Face?

Jeremy Dean writes "Our intuitive understanding is that face-to-face communication is the most persuasive. In reality, of course, it's not always possible to meet in person, so email wins out. How, then, do people react to persuasion attempts over email? Persuasion research has uncovered fascinating effects: that men seem more responsive to email because it bypasses their competitive tendencies (Guadagno & Cialdini, 2002). Women, however, may respond better in face-to-face encounters because they are more 'relationship-minded'. But is this finding just a gender stereotype?"

Comments

Just try being a telecommuting director some time

[unfortunateson]

I telecommute to a company six hundred miles away, and persuasion by email is impossible.

I send proposal after proposal, request for comment after request, but most of my coworkers -- which are located in the same facility -- see non-customer emails as the lowest priorities, and consider them pretty much ignorable.

My boss (non pointy haired, but not much better) included.

And I'm a pretty persuasive writer (maybe not this message).
But if it doesn't get read, it doesn't get responded to.

So at least once a month, I have to commute to what has become my least favorite airport in the US, just to get a face-to-face decision or committment.