Got an urgent question?
Send it to ten people simultaneously! That way you increase your chances of a speedy reply. But is that true? Researchers set up a free email address for a make believe girl on Yahoo! and let her send a message with the subject matter ‘Please help’ to various university employees. Her question was simple: has the university also got a biology department? Every recipient should have been able to answer this question: yes there is. Some emails She sent to five recipients simultaneously, others she sent to an individual.
The result? Of the recipients of the group email, just over half answered. But of those who had been addressed personally nearly two-thirds answered. What’s more, they used significantly more words in their replies and more often gave extra information, like telephone numbers or a web address. In short: the more addressees an email has the less likely a satisfactory response. And why is that? Because people feel less responsible if there are other recipients. Luckily the solution is simple. Still want to address several people simultaneously with the same request? Then do it in separate emails.
Funny, most of us deal with this daily. Whether it be work related, or those lovely mass forwards! This world is amazing on the aspect of growing communication, but is it the true answer? People are moving away from having those core relationships and turning the way of Social Media, email, and text. I, like most people I know, prefer a 1/1 relationship by way of email, phone call, or text message. That seems to be a thing of the past for some of us, but as I write this, I can’t help but think what ‘communication’ will be like in 5 or 10 years!
Chris Dutton 