The WorldLingo Quarterly Email Survey - August 2001

Download the survey in PDF format

Abstract

The following survey is conducted quarterly to measure the response of business to email requests.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3. Results

3.1 Some Interesting Responses from Major Companies

3.2 Country by Country Comparison

3.3 Language by Language Comparison

3.4 Industry by Industry Comparison

3.5 Multilingual Email Excellence Awards

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1. Introduction

Fifty-five percent of Internet users have a native language other than English (Source: Global Reach), yet 86% of web pages on the Internet are in English (Source: Inktomi and the NEC Research Institute). The latter statistic is a reflection of the Internet's history and the fact that until recently the Net was largely an English phenomenon. This is no longer the case. Of the 476 million Internet users, 33.33% primarily speak a European language, and 25.60% primarily speak an Asian language. This leaves English speakers in the minority.

How does this changing of the Internet's user demographics affect the accuracy and timeliness of email communication? "Internet Time" is now established folklore. In two words it sums up how fast the Internet has changed and how fast businesses have to evolve if they wish to compete on the Internet.

But is "Internet Time" fast enough for the majority of Internet users who do not speak English? The speed that the Internet has caught on throughout Europe and Asia, in countries where English is not widely spoken, has left many businesses under prepared to communicate with these foreign-language speakers. Subsequently many of these non-English speaking Internet users are feeling neglected.
And this neglect is coming at an enormous cost to business, with the International Data Corporation (IDC) reporting that people are four times more likely to make a purchase on the Internet if you communicate with them in their native language.

For this reason, WorldLingo decided to benchmark the capability of the world's largest companies to communicate with the majority of Internet users who cannot speak English. WorldLingo also gauges how well countries, which do not have English as their primary language, respond to email messages that are written in English. The first survey, which was released late last year, indicated that the world's top companies need to improve their language skills. The results from Survey Two reinforced this opinion, and while Survey Three saw a slight improvement in the response rate, there is still evidence that the world's largest companies cannot communicate via email to the majority of Internet users.

More than just a static benchmark, WorldLingo intends to measure how well the world's largest companies respond to email messages written in a foreign language (the survey results will be released every four months). This will help establish how fast "Internet Time" really is.

2. The Methodology *note

WorldLingo anonymously surveyed corporations from several different countries from around the world on their response to foreign language email. Each company was sent an email in one of the following languages:

• Japanese
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• German
• Portuguese
• English

The question sent to the companies was worded in a manner that ensured a returned email would have to be sent for the question to be answered properly. The email requests were split evenly across each foreign language. For a response to be counted (or what we refer to as 'correct') it had to answer the actual question and be in the same language as the question was asked. The response had to arrive within three weeks. (In the following survey summary, the term response rate refers to Correct Responses.)

The US companies surveyed were taken from the Fortune 500. All other countries surveyed were selected from the Forbes International 800.

3. The Results

88.93% of the world's largest companies respond incorrectly to foreign language email inquiries.

Figure 3.0

The first survey, which was released last November, found that only 9.34% of the world's largest corporations responded correctly to the sender's request, and in the same language as the original email. With Global Reach statistics indicating a continual trend away from English speaking dominance on the Web, it was expected that the second survey results would show an improvement in the response rate from the world's corporates. This was not the case, with the response rate slipping to 8.9%. As mentioned earlier, Survey Three saw an increase in the response rate (11.06%) but this is still a poor result considering the continual increase in the variety of languages used on the Internet (www.glreach.com). It is also interesting to note that if the email messages written in English are taken out of the results, the response rate drops to 8.40%.

Figure 3.0 (b)

While many countries did not respond at all, there were some very surprising trends amongst those that failed to respond to the question in the sender's native language.

Many did not realize they were receiving a foreign language email, they replied in English saying the email was corrupted.
Several provided an answer in the appropriate language, but the answer was to a totally different question.Several answered the question, but in a different language to that asked. (For example, a German company responding to a Japanese email message in Spanish.) 63.93% of companies did not respond at all.

3.1 Some Interesting Responses From Major Companies

AMP (Australia)
Australia's largest company (Forbes International 800) responded by writing "In English Please" in the subject line.

Dell Computer Corporation
The following was Dell's response to an email message written in Japanese - "Please reply in english (sic) in a regular email format. Your email is coming to us in an unreadable state".

Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland responded to a French email message in French. But the response was rather strange - "We do not understand French" (this was written in French).

3.2 Country by Country Comparison

The table below shows the percentage of responses from companies in each country (the results from all three surveys). In the Third Survey, France and Italy led the way. The fact that France had the best response rate is notable, because of their 0% response rate to the First Survey. The US continues to return a poor response rate (Survey 3 - 8%), while Australia's 0% response rate (same as Survey 2) is surprising, given their geographical nearness to Asian countries.

Table 3.2.0

3.2.1 Result Averages From First Three Surveys

Italy has registered the best response rate from the first three surveys (however they were not included in Survey 1). Italy's response rate of 24.41% is much higher than the next best response rate of 13.67%, which was registered by France. The worst averages belong to the US (9%), Australia (4%) and Japan (3.33%).

Table 3.2.1

Figure 3.2.1

3.3 Language by Language Comparison

The table below shows the responses broken down by language. English was included as a language for the first time. As mentioned earlier, this is the primary reason Survey Three recorded a better response rate than the two previous surveys. It was no surprise that English registered the best response rate (44.44%).

As with Survey One, there was no response to email messages written in Japanese. This may indicate that most companies do not realize they are receiving email in Japanese because their email clients do not handle Japanese characters by default. Whatever the reason, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to rectify their poor response to Japanese email because over 20% of Japanese homes are online (Access Media International).

The low response rate to Italian (2.85%) and Portuguese (0%) email messages is also notable.

Table 3.3.0

Figure 3.3.0

3.3.1 Languages - Result Averages From First Three Surveys

No language, other than English, has established itself as the 'easiest to answer' after the results were collated from the first three surveys. As mentioned in Section 3.3, it is clear is that Japanese email messages are handled poorly by the companies surveyed. Over the three surveys, only 2.02% of Japanese email messages were answered correctly. English aside, the best response average from the first three surveys belongs to Spanish email messages (13.38%).

Table 3.3.1

Figure 3.3.1

3.4 Industry by Industry Comparison

The table below shows the best three response rates broken down by industry. It is interesting that Industrial Components (and Farm equipment) finished higher than industries such as Airlines (7.14%), Entertainment and Media (0%), and Telecommunications (20%).

Table 3.4.0

3.5 Mulitlingual Email Excellence Award

WorldLingo gives a Multilingual Email Excellence Award (WMEA) to the company with the fastest response time from each country.

Of the 11.06% that responded correctly, only a handful were within the 24-hour turnaround period that most customers consider acceptable. French company Michelin Group had the fastest response time - 1 hour and 17 minutes. No Australian, Japanese or UK companies received an award, as no correct responses arrived within 24 hours. WMEA's were also awarded to the M A N Group (German), IFIL (Italian), and Loews (US). Below are the fastest responses:

Table 3.5.0

Figure 3.5.0

*Methodology Note: For more detailed information regarding the validity and reliability of the methodology, sampling size and sampling time frame, please contact WorldLingo