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A minor addition to #2, in which he says that you should only have one question: If you communicate with someone who only bothers to skim your email (tech supp

by Deestan 17y ago

A minor addition to #2, in which he says that you should only have one question: If you communicate with someone who only bothers to skim your email (tech support and sales people rarely impress here), or with people with limited reading comprehension for any other reason: State that one question three times throughout the email, each formulated in a different way but with the exact same meaning.

sokoloff 17y ago
His point #2 is only have 3 sentences in TOTAL, and make the last one the one question you have for them. Your comment is by no means a minor addition to #2, but more of a refutation.
- Deestan 17y ago
  I do not refute it. In the general case, you really should stick to three sentence total and possibly one question at the end. I provided a special (but annoyingly common) case where it is useful to diverge from the rule. The case is where there is a low probability that the reader will understand any given sentence. Given that the reader has an estimated 60% chance to understand any given sentence, if you repeat the content in three different sentences, you get a 94% chance that at least one of them will be understood. As an actual example, I give a shortened transcript from a recent discussion with PayPal support. My first 3 emails were all variations of: I keep getting "The card cannot be used, try again later" when trying to pay. This has been going on for months. What should I do? 2-3 sentences and one question; they were completely unable to understand any of it (likely because the support people are paid by the number of tickets they reply to and just skim any incoming case). I estimated their reading comprehension hit rate to about 30%, which means I had to fire at least 7 explanations at them to get a >90% chance of success. This is my 4th email to them, which was rewarded with an actual helpful answer: Hi. Thank you for the answer, but since you also recommend "just try again at a later time" it seems you are missing a vital point I'm trying to make: I have been "trying again" for months. I have been trying again weeks later several times. This has been going on for months. As you recommended, I tried repeating the process at a later date, but this did not help. [skip 5 more reformulations] Please let me know typically how long this "security- related" issue takes to pass through PayPal's bowels. How much "later time" do I have to wait to try again? [signature] When trimming the fat, this email is identical to the first one which has 3 sentences, the last one of which is a question.

by Deestan 17y ago

sokoloff 17y ago

His point #2 is only have 3 sentences in TOTAL, and make the last one the one question you have for them. Your comment is by no means a minor addition to #2, but more of a refutation.

Deestan 17y ago
I do not refute it. In the general case, you really should stick to three sentence total and possibly one question at the end. I provided a special (but annoyingly common) case where it is useful to diverge from the rule. The case is where there is a low probability that the reader will understand any given sentence. Given that the reader has an estimated 60% chance to understand any given sentence, if you repeat the content in three different sentences, you get a 94% chance that at least one of them will be understood. As an actual example, I give a shortened transcript from a recent discussion with PayPal support. My first 3 emails were all variations of: I keep getting "The card cannot be used, try again later" when trying to pay. This has been going on for months. What should I do? 2-3 sentences and one question; they were completely unable to understand any of it (likely because the support people are paid by the number of tickets they reply to and just skim any incoming case). I estimated their reading comprehension hit rate to about 30%, which means I had to fire at least 7 explanations at them to get a >90% chance of success. This is my 4th email to them, which was rewarded with an actual helpful answer: Hi. Thank you for the answer, but since you also recommend "just try again at a later time" it seems you are missing a vital point I'm trying to make: I have been "trying again" for months. I have been trying again weeks later several times. This has been going on for months. As you recommended, I tried repeating the process at a later date, but this did not help. [skip 5 more reformulations] Please let me know typically how long this "security- related" issue takes to pass through PayPal's bowels. How much "later time" do I have to wait to try again? [signature] When trimming the fat, this email is identical to the first one which has 3 sentences, the last one of which is a question.