Why Does No one Like Email?

Statistics suggest email is not the most effective way to contact employees anymore. A survey found that 60.8% of employees often or always ignore emails at work. With emails demise how do you contact people? 

Chat Apps

A staggering 47.7% of employees say that reducing the amount of emails they get on a daily basis would make them happier at work, considering how hard business leaders work to try and make their employees happy this seems like a relatively simple fix. Popular chat platforms like Slack, Gchat or even Skype can help reduce the number of simple emails sent over the course of a day or project. Many chat platforms now enable the easy sharing of files and images, making collaboration convenient. 

Some of the advantages of apps like these include; reducing the number of short emails, can be easier to review the history of a project rather than living through hundreds of emails, facilitates employee engagement. 

If you are thinking about implementing chat into your business one of the most important aspects to bear in mind is that it has the unique quality of being quite fun and interactive, things like reactions emojis encourage people to react immediately to content. Encouraging a more interactive culture. 

Text message

Survey respondents did indicate however that in some situations it’s easiest to send them a text message. In fact, 43.9% of respondents said that an SMS message is the best way to reach them in an emergency situation.  Statistics show that text messages have an open rate as high as 98%. If you want to reach someone quickly, a text message might be the best way to go.

While some business leaders might feel texting is too personal, business texting services allow managers to add their team to a business texting list they can operate from a computer or app. From there, managers can text one-on-one or send a mass text message to an entire list. Some of the advantages of this are; its a more personal, genuine way of communicating, people read their text messages usually right away, easy to send mass texts or text one-to-one.

If you choose to integrate business SMS messaging into your workplace, ensure you don’t overdo it one of the main reason people tend to respond so quickly is that they aren’t usually inundated with texts in the same way they can be with emails.

Should you eliminate email altogether?

There’s probably no way to get rid of email altogether, and that might not even be the best goal to be aiming for. What’s more important is to think of ways you can reduce the amount of emails you’re sending and compliment email with other communication tools. Finding a communication strategy that uses several methods can help keep the people you work with engaged and can draw on the strengths of each method to build a robust working culture.