Report Card On E-Mail: An Investigation Of Replies To Consumers
Authors: Berger Karen A. , Topol Martin T. 
Published: February 2016

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Organizational communications have been studied from several vantage points, and typically as a one-way communication tool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Today, with the burgeoning growth and adoption of new technologies two-way communications have become ever more common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>While this paper focuses its research attention to specific forms of e-mail communications between organizations and those it seeks as consumers, a conceptual framework is also presented that sets a foundation for examining and evaluating the myriad of communications alternatives that are available to organizations and the publics they serve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">&nbsp;</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In this exploratory study 165 companies were e-mailed each of two messages and their responses to these e-mails were analyzed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Firms used in the study were selected from seven different industries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The findings reveal that many firms have serious problems responding to fairly simple and common communications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Barely 45% of the firms studied responded to both types of inquiries, and many simply failed to respond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Further, there was considerable variability in the timeliness, clarity and specificity of response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">&nbsp;</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-pagination: none;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">While one may assume that e-mail communication, as a technology is well understood given its proliferation, there are several factors that are discussed that may impede responsiveness &ndash; in timeliness, clarity or specificity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As a written form of communication, e-mail presents a challenge common to other forms of written communiqu&eacute;s; they provide a record that can be reviewed subsequent to the exchange between parties involved in communication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>As such, organizations may be reluctant to answer all e-mails for a myriad of reasons:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>some may believe that e-mails place unnecessary or imposing demands on its workforce; some may fear that those responsible for handling the correspondence may be challenged to convey accurate, personalized information in an articulate manner; others simply do not want to have the burden of having to keep a record of such correspondence; yet others may simply view e-mail as a trivial or unimportant, irrespective of whether the communication was marked &ldquo;urgent&rdquo; or &ldquo;confidential&rdquo; by the sender; and others may fear that their e-mail correspondence is apt to become public, even if marked confidential &ndash; as email lacks the advantage of privacy that accompanied other more conventional written messages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Finally, hypotheses for future research based on the Customer Response System model are presented.</span></span></p>