Best And Worst Of Email Interaction Design, 2008

Forrester applied its Email Interaction Review to the email interactions of 16 firms: four each of the largest airlines, banks, department stores, and MP3 player manufacturers. None of the 13 companies that actually responded to our emails passed the evaluation, but Sears and Creative received the highest overall scores. As a group, banks outperformed other industries, while airlines fell to the bottom of the list. We also found a number of best practices, such as Macy's clear instructions for responding, American Airlines' quick response time, and Kohl's easy-to-scan emails. To improve email interactions, firms should evaluate their own email experiences.