【职场商务英语】职场绝招: 如何让邮件回复率大增
【职场商务英语】职场绝招: 如何让邮件回复率大增
This column will tell you:
这篇专栏文章将会告诉你：
- How to write an email that will produce the results you want;
-如何写一封能够达到理想效果的电子邮件
- Why the scientific method can produce practical insights, quickly.
-为什么科学的方式能够快速产生实用的见解
How can I promise this? I've just been reading up on the latest research from Paul Adams and Stefan Hunt of the Financial Conduct Authority - the UK's shiny new financial industry regulator.
我为何会有这样的自信？我这段时间一直在研读保罗??亚当斯(Paul Adams)和斯蒂芬??亨特(Stefan Hunt)的最新研究报告，两人均来自英国新成立的金融业监管机构金融市场行为监管局(Financial ConductAuthority)。
I am delighted to report that they've been trying to figure out how to write more effectiveletters. Better yet, to this end they have conducted a large randomised trial. The wonderfulconclusion: science can help us write more clearly.
我乐于告诉大家，他们一直在努力研究如何写信的效果更佳。更值得惊叹的是，他们开展了大量随机实验，得出了一个奇妙的结论：科学可以帮助我们在写作中更清晰地表达。
The letters in question were being written by a company to 200,000 former customers. The letters raised the prospect of a mis-sold product and offered the possibility of a refund. The question was: which wording would prod customers into claiming their money? The FCA researchers, in co-operation with the company in question, designed variants of the letter, mailed each variant to 1,000 customers, and compared the response rates.
该研究调查的对象，是一家公司写给20万名前客户的信。这些信件表示，该公司之前销售的一种产品可能有问题，公司可能会向客户退款。该研究试图搞清楚的问题是：如何措辞会促使客户索要退款？两位研究者与该公司一同拟出了多种版本，并将每种版本发给1000个客户，然后对比各种版本的回信率。
The original letter looks brief and to the point, but on closer inspection it buries the key detail: the customer may be entitled to a refund. Response rates to this letter were dismally low, less than 2 per cent. Perhaps that is no surprise - the recipients were ex-customers with every reason to throw the letter in the bin, unopened.
原始的版本看上去简单明了，但仔细一看，“客户可能会有权获得退款”这个关键细节在这个版本的行文中毫不起眼。这封信的回复率非常低，还不到2%。这或许并不令人意外，收信人都是以前的客户，他们完全有理由不打开正文就把信件丢进垃圾箱。
The experiment did the sort of thing that profit-seeking companies have been doing for many years: it tested seven different tweaks to the way the letter was written or presented. There are 128 different ways to combine these seven tweaks, and with each of 128 variants sent to 1,000 customers the experiment had a lot of power to pinpoint even quite small effects.
这个实验所做的，就是追求利润的公司多年以来一直在做的事情：它检测了7种行文（或呈现方式）对信件回复率的影响。对这7种方式中的每一种选择采纳或不采纳，就会得到128个不同的信件版本。研究者将128个版本的每一种发送给1000个客户，因此这个实验有足够的能力检测出哪怕是非常细微的影响。
Here are three tweaks that made little difference: printing “important: please read and act quickly” on the envelope induced a minuscule extra response; adding the regulator's logo achieved nothing
