CogDaily readers are certainly opinionated about email sign-offs. Last week's Casual Friday study on the topic generated 343 responses, and our post on the study attracted 21 comments, some of them quite impassioned:
When someone signs an email "Cheers", I assume that they are either British or learned English in a British school. If I find out they are American, they get a check in the box marked "douchebag" in my personal catalog of people I know.
Wow! Who knew the stakes of an email sign-off were so high?
So, what is the best email sign-off? Well, according to our readers, the most appropriate sign-off for business emails is "Thanks." Arguably, it's also the best response for personal emails, too. Here's how readers rated our suggested email responses:
Our scale went from "overly effusive" to "overly brusque," and the middle was "just right." As you can see, "Thanks" was closest to the middle for business emails. For personal emails, "Yours truly" was slightly closer (though not significantly so). But I wouldn't advise using "Yours truly" if you're not sure your correspondent will appreciate the sentiment. Take a look at this chart:
While nearly everyone rated "Thanks" as just right, responses for "Yours truly" were all over the map, with the largest single group of respondents leaning toward an "overly effusive" rating. Only 73 out of 343 respondents rated "Yours truly" as "just right" for personal emails.
One of the questions we were hoping our study would resolve is whether different occupations had different standards for email sign-offs. In addition to asking readers to rate sign-offs, we also asked what type of job they had. Do businesspeople sign off differently from educators? Do researchers have different email standards from those working in the arts? Not according to our data. I was unable to identify any significant differences based on occupation. Age, and number of emails sent/receive also bore no relationship to preferred sign-offs.
And what of the notion, brought up in the New York Times article that inspired the study, that the sign-off "Best" is a brush-off in a business email? Our readers actually rated "Best" nearly as close to "just right" as "Thanks." But what happens when we chart all the responses, as we did above for personal emails?
"Thanks" is once again the clear winner, followed closely by "Sincerely." "Best" is just middle of the pack. And comparing the "Best" plot to the plot for "Yours truly," it might be the case that if a business contact changes their sign-off to you from the latter to the former, they are indicating a shift in the warmth of your relationship.
Do you have any other thoughts about email sign-offs? Let us know in the comments.
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This was a fun casual Friday, but as is the case with most of these short surveys, I always feel like the study could have been more thorough with more questions. Because really, this study only tested one dimension (effusiveness). So claiming that "Thanks" is the "best" sign-off isn't actually right. You can say it has the best average and lowest variance on the effusiveness dimension. But it might have other problems.
I think I rated "Thanks" as being pretty middle of the ground, but I don't think it's a good sign-off if it doesn't make sense in your e-mail. What if your e-mail has nothing that would warrant a "Thanks"? (Such as, "attached is the document you requested" or "To answer your question, blah blah." Neither of these cases warrant a "thanks", because you're the one delivering the requested information. Wouldn't "best" be better here?)
I think "best" or "best wishes" is a pretty good sign-off, and it's commonly used among academics I know. It's too bad that it was the negative example from the article, because I wonder whether people were primed against it.
All in all, a neat survey. I'm now really paranoid about sign-offs, given that they seem to matter so much to some people!
What I use in a "business" e-mail depends a lot on who the recipient is. Not being employed, I hardly ever deal with business-type stuff, but when I do, it's almost always "Thanks."
With most of my family and friends, I use "Type at you later........." (What does it say about me that I love trail-offs so much?) When I'm going to see them soon, it's "CUL8R."
Of course, we all have our special cases.
With my son, it's been "Love and Sunshine, Mom" ever since he first learned to read. (He was about 3, which accounts for the cuteness; I'm generally not big on "cute.") He's now 24, but that doesn't seem to matter. I'll probably still be signing off that way when he's 42, and I suspect I'll probably go with "Love and Sunshine, Grandma" when he has kids.
With my last significant other, it was "u-no-hoo."
With my fellow faith-based liberals, it's "Grace, peace, and viva la revolución."
I have lots of other specialized "buzzword" signoffs, but those are the three I use most often.
I work for a financial services company. I usually just sign off with my name, dept, and phone number as do most people in the company.
When signing off personal e-mails, I usually just use my name. If I am sending an email to my mother, it is "love."
I have bad associations with "cheers" as I once had a whacko supervisor who used "cheers" (she would alternately call her boyfriend on the phone and yell and put her head down on her desk and cry).
For what it's worth, "cheers" isn't just a UK thing: it's very common in Australia too, and probably among several other Commonwealth countries. It works as an informal but polite email signoff because it's similarly common as a friendly signoff in everyday conversation (often in the form of very clipped "cheers mate" in semi-formal contexts like service situations). I tend not to use "thanks" because it presupposes that the recipient is going to do something for you, and prefer to use an adjective-free "regards" as the more formal signoff. Phrases like "yours sincerely" sound very antiquated, and only really make sense to me in something extremely formal like a job application.
If the relationship is at least a bit friendly I usually say "take care" if "thanks" isn't appropriate. With people I'm more friendly with I'll say "cheers," but I never thought of it in terms of being a British thing. I was thinking more of a toast - salud, proost, etc. I see it as an upbeat thing to say signifying hey it's all good, we're on the right track, etc. But maybe that's just me.
I like cheers, too, for the same reasons that Erin listed.
I wonder if the use of "cheers" in the United States might be a Northeastern thing, kind of like saying "soda" instead of "pop." I had never seen "cheers" used as an email sign-off at all until I moved from the Upper Midwest to Boston. Here it seems to be one of the most common sign-offs, both for personal and business emails. I think it would be pretty interesting to do a study similar to this one that looked at variation among different regions of the country.
As a college student, I've had to write a lot of business letters to administration and possible employers. I tend to just sign off with my name, or occasionally a 'Best.'
With my dad, it's always either 'peace' or 'pax.' With my mom, 'love,' with my sister and some close friends, either 'besos' or 'abrazos.' Otherwise, I'll use either 'best' or 'warmest.' Though I do tend to use 'cheers' occasionally, as well.
I generally use thanks+comma when writing to men and thanks+exclamation point when writing to women. Yes, I think the exclamation point is a little fruity unless I am really and truly thanking a guy for something.
What about greetings? I have a double standard there too. Ladies get "Hi [first name]," or "Hello [first name]," or Good morning/afternoon, [first name]." Dudes just get first name+comma.
How about group emails? I prefer "Everyone," and hate when people begin with "All,".
I can't remember now what the listed occupations were, but I remember thinking at the time that they weren't detailed enough. As an engineer, and specifically, a software engineer, I think people in my occupation likely have different feelings towards emails than people in, say, finance or marketing, but we would all have been covered by the category "businesspeople".
wat abt 'Regards'? i use it often.. when an acknowledgement is needed, i use 'Thanks & Regards'. When its a person who is very close and the mail is official, i use 'Warm Regards'.