Business communication should be clear, precise, and to the point. Many businesses fail due to a lack of communication and methods of easier communication. Transparent easy-to-understand communication is a must to succeed today. No one has a foolproof way of communicating, but by using communication tools like technology, it has become easier to be heard efficiently. Communication and visibility help create brand recall. This in turns helps your business flourish.
Collaboration is the key to effective business partnerships through communication. Whether you are a team of ten employees or a thousand, exchange of information is paramount to effective business. Solutions are found much faster once communication gets improved. Easier use of telecommunications enables a faster exchange of information and sharing.
Let us look at 5 ways to enable better business communications.
1. Video conferencing:
Often times, meaning and depth of communication are lost in a 2-way conversation like telephonic discussions. Instead, video conferencing is a more efficient method of communication. Operational costs and travel expenses are also controlled with the use of VoIP technology for conferencing and video meetings.
Video conferencing enables collaboration between employees and customers when it is not always possible to meet and discuss mutually beneficial solutions. This also helps tremendously when employees are traveling and are unable to be physically present at critical discussions. Enabling easier telecommunication is one of the most important factors of effective business communication in today’s fast-paced work environment.
2. Social interaction:
Many large companies fail to understand why employees need to be social with each other. Easier interactions in the workplace encourage healthy maintenance of professional relationships in the long term. Movie nights, company picnics, team building retreats, motivational team activities, etc. help in breaking barriers in communication between employees and teammates.
Once the barriers to communication are broken, collaboration on a formal and informal level becomes easier. Companies that create avenues for employees to connect and interact with each other through groups such as internal communications software, Facebook groups, and WhatsApp chat groups and so on show a higher level of productivity than those that don’t. It is always prudent to ensure employees are able to connect with each other.
3. Efficient Digital Communication:
Digital communication between employees and clients is absolutely critical. Enabling faster and more efficient communication helps in getting work to a higher productivity level. Emails, Video calling, FaceTime calls, Skype, and so on work as fabulously as sitting together in a meeting and discussing solutions together.
If you are sending emails or text messages that are of a critical nature, be sure to check the tone of your message or email and only then click “send.” Keep the flow of language as natural as possible and maintain a high level of respect in all words used. Since this is not a part of face to face communication and is digital communication, your words may be construed in the wrong manner which can cause a huge misunderstanding.
4. Verbal Communication:
Verbal communication carries great importance in business communication. Intended messages to people can be taken in a wrong manner if tone, diction, and words are not used with proper care and intent. Ensuring verbal communication is done calmly and professionally is the need of the day since most businesses today deal with people from multicultural backgrounds. Highly informal communication might be mistaken for unprofessionalism and over-friendly behavior in the office. It’s not just what you say in a professional capacity, but also how you say it, that matters.
This includes your tone, your voice modulation and rate of speech while delivering any information. When in groups, having a participative way of communicating, and encouraging others to be a part of it as well works well. Interpersonal skills in various contexts like fellow colleagues, seniors, and subordinates, customers/ clients, employees, and speakers, etc.
5. Non-Verbal communication:
Non-verbal communication mainly pertains to body language and written communication. Facial expressions, body posture, hand gestures, eye contact, email language, usage of written words, and so on all come under non-verbal communication. Be very careful about how you come across while using informal written communication to convey business meaning. You should not use slang and colloquialism while communicating personal presentation and environment in an official capacity.
More than voice or words, how you express your feelings and/ or emotions by various forms of expression, touch, smell, eye contact form part of this powerful way of communicating.