According to a Psychology study, face-to-face meetings appear to be 34 times more effective than emails, when attempting to communicate.

The recent years have seen an increasing advance in technology, with several communication tools released every day. However, despite the landscape filled with interactive software and platforms, such as Skype, Hangouts, Slack, FaceTime, etc., the most used tool remains the traditional email. 
Emails are intuitive, easy to use, and does not require a connection to be established beforehand. All it takes is writing down the email address of the person we want to reach and click ‘send’. The connection is there already, without any preliminary steps. And it’s free! 
Emails are widely used in working environments, to connect with job applicants, colleagues and employees/employers. Furthermore, with the creation of newsletters, emails represent a key asset for marketing strategies allowing organisations to communicate to partners, customers, and potential customers information or even advertise promotions. Moreover, emails’ users are not limited to business people, but the wide part of the population uses them, also for leisure use.

The huge popularity of emails led the researchers M. Mahdi Roghanizad, from University of Waterloo, Canada, and Vanessa K. Bohns, from Cornell University, United States, to analyse this communication tool and compare it to the nowadays less common face-to-face meeting. The research was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. It suggests that face-to-face meeting tend to be way more successful than email communications, probably because people got so used to lack of personal interactions through technology that, when such interaction takes place, it tends to leave a significant impact.

For the study researchers, Roghanizad and Bohns chose 45 participants and instructed each one of them to ask 10 strangers to complete a survey. Half of the participant sent their requests via email while the other half found people to ask in person. The exact wording was used for both groups.

The study showed that the face-to-face requests were 34 times more likely to get positive responses than the emails. Bohns explained: “In our studies, participants were highly attuned to their own trustworthiness and the legitimacy of the action they were asking others to take when they sent their emails. Anchored on this information, they failed to anticipate what the recipients of their emails were likely to see: an untrustworthy email asking them to click on a suspicious link.”

However, the researchers only analysed the results of approaching strangers and did not look into how these results would have differed if the participants had contacted acquaintances instead. It is possible that asking acquaintances through email would have better results. However, it could be argued that a face-to-face interaction will always be richer than a word-based one or even a virtual one. In spite of the type of relationship that may exist with the other person, or even if is a person just met, communicating face-to-face still appears to be the best choice, communication-wise.

Here is why you should opt for a face-to-face meeting, when possible, for effective communications.

1. More than words. Body language is extremely important when it comes to communication. It’s not just about what we say, but also how we say it. In fact, about 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal factors. And is not just about people who don’t know you. Other Studies looked into it, finding that even best friends cannot interpret emotions properly when reading an email.

2. If you are right here, I am more likely to trust you. Whether is a work meeting or a date, at some point everybody wishes for a face-to-face meeting. The reason is that when we talk in person with somebody, the contact seems more authentic and we are not hiding behind a telephone, a screen or a letter. We are taking a risk, moving a step away from our privacy to show the other person that we can be trusted. And the same goes for the other person. Is a mutual commitment to establish a connection on a deeper level.

3. The senses. According to Psychology Today, humans are wired to interpret the touch of our fellow humans. Touch can foster cooperation and relationship building. Studies have found that seemingly insignificant touches yield bigger tips for waitresses. People are more likely to buy if they’re touched by a store greeter. Strangers tend to help more others if a touch accompanies the request. And then don’t forget about the eyes. Would you ever compare looking your date into his/her eyes to send an email or a text message? No, right?

4. Can I join? When we share a space with other people, if something is going on, these people tend to get involved naturally. For instance, we are talking to our colleague about some general topic, and the colleague next to him shares his/her opinion. Or our colleague is trying to help us with something but is having a hard time, and therefore the other colleague tries to help without being asked for it. It just happens. Being in a space together creates some kind of cooperative environment, where people are driven to participate.

5. More efficient. Face-to-face meetings are usually shorter than conference calls. This is possibly due to the fact that words alternate with long pauses and there are even moments where nobody talks. Maybe the person on the other side of the phone is not really listening and is distracted, but we will never know. In a face-to-face meeting, it is harder to hide. We are forced to participate a minimum in the conversation, otherwise, we will end up offending the interlocutor. And, on the other hand, having to be constantly focused, we will be more likely to get straight to the point rather than just space out while focusing on other tasks.

What to do, then? A wise choice would be to go for a face-to-face meeting as the first option when possible. Obviously, being limited in time and space due to work and personal commitment, this is not always possible. Therefore, when this happens, a good way would be to use video call as the richest form of non-face-to-face communication, in order to back up words with a minimum of body language, enriching the communication, while ‘forcing’ the interlocutor and yourself to focus and don’t get distracted. This will produce better results in a shorter time.

Bohns observed: “If your office runs on email and text-based communication, it’s worth considering whether you could be a more effective communicator by having conversations in person. It is often more convenient and comfortable to use text-based communication than to approach someone in-person, but if you overestimate the effectiveness of such media, you may regularly–and unknowingly–choose inferior means of influence.”

Written by: Pietro Paolo Frigenti

Journal Reference: M. Mahdi Roghanizad, Vanessa K. Bohns, Ask in person: You’re less persuasive than you think over email, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 69, 2017, Pages 223-226, ISSN 0022-1031, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.10.002.