#15: How to increase response to your emails

Adding an extra dose of behavioral science to your week with our series In a Nutshell— a collection of behavioral science principles, explained in 150 words or less, written weekly by CUBIC director Allison Zelkowitz.

About how many emails do you receive each day: 50, 100, 200?

Now think for a second:  which emails do you respond to immediately, and which do you put off till later, or ignore? 

Professor Todd Rogers, a behavioral scientist at Harvard, has determined the secret to increasing responses to emails, letters, and text messages, and it’s (drumroll…) use fewer words. 

In Rogers’ webcast, The Science of Corresponding with Busy People, as well as his Boston Globe Article, he shares this and four other principles for effective communication, which he has tested via randomized experiments.  In one experiment (see image below), cutting the number of words nearly doubled survey response rates.  Rogers’ own rule for his company, Everyday Labs, is that no email may be longer than four sentences!

Can you imagine a world in which your company made this a rule?