Dates vs days: How businesses can drive urgency to act

When it comes to communicating a time frame to a customer or colleague, you have decisions to make about how to describe it to get the response you want. For example, should you use days of the week or just a date? Should you use dates at all or are you better to say how many days something will take? 

Let’s look at how to get your time framing right.

Framing time

Adding the day of the week something is due can impact how people react. Let’s imagine you are telling a customer how long their delivery will take. 

You can either say it will be delivered on February 10 or it will be delivered on Tuesday, February 10. 

Now, more information is better, right? It’s helpful for them to know which day the 10th of February is.

Not so fast.

When we add a day of the week, it cues people to think in terms of a shorter duration. 

That might seem like a good thing.