You send an email hoping for a prompt answer. We are living in an age of instantaneous communication, aren't we? But unfortunately, this story doesn't go the way most people want it to. Our emails often go unread and we never get replies. Whether you're sending an email to a professor with whom you'd like to get in touch with after years or an email to a business partner looking to close a deal there's much we know about response times thanks to psychological research. A study involving 2 million users exchanging 16 billion emails over the course of several months found interesting patterns of communication. Here are some of the key findings:
1. 50% of replies are sent within in an hour.
2. After 48 hours, you're probably not going to get a reply. Sorry!
3. Teenagers reply the fastest (within 13 minutes or less)
4. Gender plays a small role.
5. Respondents using a laptop tend to take almost twice as long as mobile phone users.
According to the study, the optimal time to send an email is in the morning of a workday. And the shorter the email the better!
1. 50% of replies are sent within in an hour.
2. After 48 hours, you're probably not going to get a reply. Sorry!
3. Teenagers reply the fastest (within 13 minutes or less)
4. Gender plays a small role.
5. Respondents using a laptop tend to take almost twice as long as mobile phone users.
According to the study, the optimal time to send an email is in the morning of a workday. And the shorter the email the better!