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Ending Emails With Certain Variation Of Thank You Vastly Improves Response Rate, Study Finds (inc.com)
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.
Except for people who end emails with "Thanks much". Fuck them.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Won't some of you consider investing in my consumer blood testing kickstarter?
Thanks in advance
A novel ending is more likely to be noticed and its contents noted.
Picard: "Who the fuck reads to the end of an email?"
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.
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.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
I saw from the original article that: Quote "" 1. We used an open-source library that allowed us to thread emails from lists that ranged from support emails for Pidgin (an instant messaging client) to UCLA’s Religion Law list. Many of the larger lists revolved around open source software and operating systems (e.g., Python, CentOS). We used Regular Expressions to extract closings from these emails, and were thus able to find how different closings correlated with response rate. End Quote. 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.
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).
Table-ized A.I.
I can't stand getting an e-mail from someone where the whole bottom of the thing is a threat written in some lawyer-like speech (ie. "this is privileged and confidential", etc, etc).
If you send this shit to me, it's going right into the trash. I don't care who you are. Oh, and it's *NOT* "privileged and confidential". If it was, you'd send it first-class mail, where you actually *do* have legal protections. Lawyer fail.
Don't e-mail me with threats. You can shove this shit so far up your rectum it comes out of your mouth.
CAPTCHA: annoyed
Thanks.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Fuck off.
Sincerely,
nitehawk214
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
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.
I'm not going to end an email with "Thanks in advance" unless I know the person can do what I'm asking.
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 do is rude. You basically establish that I "have to" do it now that you have already thanked me for it. Like, say, when asking for charity money. "Here's a letter begging for money. Thank for giving to us!" Screw you!
Yes, I know, it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but if you actually ask something from me that is my and only my decision whether or not I do it, thank me AFTER I made the decision to do it. Don't make that decision for me with a premature "thanks".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
#DeleteFacebook
I find near 100% results if I open with "Would you kindly..."
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Fuck you only differs by 7 letters, yet hasn't helped my email response rate all that much.
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!
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.
> 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 filters.
Anyway, I suspect you get *paid* to reply to support emails. Nobody gets paid on the Pidgin list. Requesters are asking other users to do them a favor by helping them out. Given the typical quality of support questions, if *most* get an answer I'd call that pretty good. I'm not going to take time out of my day to reply to someone who sends:
Subject: HELP! Urgent!
Body: I need to Pidgin. My friend message. Email me dumbass@aol.com today plese!
People who get everything wrong because of failure to RTFM
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.
What are the stats on:
Please do the needful and kindly revert back.
Posts ending in "thanks in advance" are the *very* ones I refuse to reply to.
I must be a sociopath.
Why the fuck does the heading contain the word "certain"?
Many people have "Thank You" in their signature file.
Fuck off, Elizabeth, you're not allowed to be in that business anymore.
Thanks,
-The FDA
In my experience, the thank you can also be a polite fuck you.
Posting AC because I still work for this company...
In my first evaluation I was warned by my superior that my emails were rude and abrasive. I was shocked and asked for clarification. He said several others had actually complained about it. In hindsight, I should have asked for specific examples (hey, I was young).
I decided to end all my emails with "Thank you" or "Thanks". No other changes.
On my next evaluation, he said that he was amazed at my improvement. Even used the words "vast improvement" on the evaluation. I still do it to this day.
Thanks,
AC
P.S. :-P
Guess I'm old fashioned...pretty much any email I send, regardless...ends in thank you. When I send an email to a company, I always try to say something like thank you for taking your time to read my email, or thank you for your attention in this matter or something professional. You get more flies with sugar than vinegar.
Common editors, don't turn this into buzzfeed...
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 material world and deny him the ecstasy of true enlightenment. Why do you still see that nut?
...omphaloskepsis often...
One of my biggest peeves where I work is people who incorporate "Thank you," or some variant as the first line of their sig. Their messages thus thank the recipient without any conscious effort and regardless of context. For instance: "We went to lunch without you. Thank you..." If they are thanking me, I take their thanks a lot less seriously if they have hard-coded it. It strips them of all sincerity in my book.
I do my best never to reply to coworkers who sign their emails with a template containing "Regards,". Offensive as hell.
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 going to arrive at a future where we have lost part of our humanity because every part of every conversation will be viewed as a game move in a game of chess. Everything will be solely about each person playing a game for objectives that are of importance to them disguising it as something it's not.
We'll make great pets
"Best".
I don't know what that even means when someone closes a message with that.
"You're the best!"
"I'm the best!"
"Best wishes"
"Best in Show"
"Best not message me back, ever"