Most people have an email sign-off of choice at work, but it turns out some are more effective than others at getting replies.
Sign-offs like ‘best’ and ‘regards’ are ok, but they’re not going to help you get the response you’re after.
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Email productivity company Boomerang has conducted a study investigating the sign-offs of over 350,000 email threads to see which ones are most effective at getting replies.
These eight most popular closing lines appeared a lot: thanks, regards, cheers, best regards, thanks in advance, thank you, best, and kind regard. but the ones that got the most responses might surprise you – ‘thanks’ and ‘thanks in advance’.
In fact, ‘thanks in advance’ was the most popular closing, with a response rate that was 14% higher than the worst closing, ‘best’.
“I think the correlation we found between thankful closings and higher response rates reflects a broader, more well-documented relationship where showing gratitude increases the likelihood that others will help you or otherwise perform a behaviour that you want them to,” Boomerang data scientist Brendan Greenley told Refinery29.
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Of course, this advice should be applied to context, as being overly thankful will not necessarily help you if it is not appropriate for the email you’re sending.
Nevertheless, a good little tip to remember!
