Words by Claudia Siron
Communicating with customers, clients and colleagues was much easier when I served ice-cream at the local deli. Now, as an adult, I have to speak to people via email, which wouldn’t be all that bad if it wasn’t for one problem: the email sign-off.
The email sign-off is a universal (unspoken?) struggle in our society. Do you do a Ron Burgundy, closing out with “You stay classy, San Diego”? Do you want to conclude your already bland conversation with “Regards” like literally every other human on earth? Or do you want to leave something memorable – the perfect concoction of polite and professional, with a dash of personality in the form of a casual greeting or inside joke?
In order to rid the world of email sign-offs that are void of any human connection, we must first know how to recognise them. So we all don’t fall asleep, we’ve reimagined the most common email closings as after-work drinks. Fun, right? Spot yours:
The Vodka Lime Soda: “Best”
Polite but basic.
This email sign-off is most likely used by Brittany in PR who’s not interested in chatting right now despite choosing a career that involves quite a lot of chatting. She’s fashion-professional and is too busy to be writing this email.
The Carlton Draught: “Cheers”
The blokey social butterfly with effortless charisma.
This email sign-off is used by the Matt’s of the world. They’re “here for a good time, not a long time” — something that’s obvious by their incredibly short emails. Also see: Mate; Can you believe it’s Monday again ha ha.
The Cosmopolitan: “Thanks a mill!”
Fun, flirty and fruity.
This email sign-off is usually used by the women who look up to Carrie Bradshaw and make comments like “that’s such a Samantha thing to say”. They also wear a lot of floral and overuse the exclamation mark.
The Negroni: “Regards”
Tasteful, classy, arrogant.
This email sign-off comes from the boss who likes his emails like he likes his drinks: stiff. He probably wears a nice suit to work, even if he doesn’t have to.
The White Wine: “Kind regards”
Emotional and already at Friday drinks.
There’s one in every office — maybe you’re it? They’re usually involved in some kind of office gossip, post passive-aggressive signs in the kitchen and have a lot to say when they’re three drinks deep at the Christmas party. Usually add ‘kind’ to balance out an otherwise blunt email.
Why do I care?
Okay, so you might be thinking: I don’t give a flying f*ck how someone ends their email. Well, apparently we all do give a slight f*ck. Boomerang blog looked at sign-offs in over 350,000 email threads and found that certain closings truly do deliver higher response rates.
These were the most effective (in order):
- Thanks in advance (65.7% response rate)
- Thanks (63.0% response rate)
- Thank you (57.9% response rate)
- Cheers (54.4% response rate)
- Kind regards (53.9% response rate)
- Regards (53.5% response rate)
- Best regards (52.9% response rate)
- Best (51.2% response rate)
It seems we prefer when people are more casual and genuine with us, and thank us for something we haven’t even agreed to yet (or the fact that we even opened their email in the first place). And that is so fine by me.
