(Akiit.com) In business, as in virtually everything else, communication is key. The ability to communicate can keep our businesses going, but the ability to communicate efficiently and effectively can be what makes it run with increased productivity which in turn can help to facilitate long term growth. But in an era where digital communications are in a constant state of evolution, are the traditional modes of communication really the best? If you run your own business or are a full time freelancer, you likely know that an agile approach to technology can make the difference between operating with increased efficiency and productivity and fading into obsolescence while your competitors thrive in your wake.
Thus, perhaps it’s time that we revisit the traditional modes of communication and see if we really need them, or if they can be replaced or tweaked for peak efficiency.
Landline telephones
While business has relied on a robust telecommunications network for decades upon decades, there has always been the fundamental fact that talking to people over the phone… Well, it’s kind of awkward. We’re denied the ability to pick up on nuances of facial expression and tone of voice can be misheard or misconstrued even over the clearest line. A telephone conversation is possibly the worst place for the explicit and the implicit to be confused. It affords us part of the picture but not a cohesive whole. In an era where everyone has a smartphone in their pocket but you rarely ever see anyone make calls with the damned things, it begs the question… Does your business even need a phone number?
There’s also the consideration that unsolicited cold calls can rob a business of its time efficiency. If a business uses phone calls, it’s best to ensure that they are scheduled and pre-arranged for peak efficiency.
Email is good because it allows the writer time to revise, revisit, proof and fact check the content of the message, allowing for clearer and more explicit communication for both parties. The trouble is that email has an inherent lack of immediacy that makes it fundamentally inefficient for business communications. How often have you marked an email URGENT and had to wait hours or even days for a reply? You likely deal with busy people regularly who are rarely at their desks and even when your email is received it is probably skimmed over briefly then nudged aside by something more pressing. A texting service like TextBetter can help you to harness the immediacy of text messaging for your business. This can be more effective even than using a platform like Slack because 97% of texts are picked up within 15 minutes.
Video conferencing
Video conferencing is a relatively new phenomenon and by virtue of that and nothing else, many smaller businesses are fairly skeptical about its use. Nonetheless, it allows all the benefits of face to face interaction despite the inconveniences of geography.
Video conferencing has been famously unreliable over the past decade and a half but as new technologies make it more efficient we can expect it to become yet more ubiquitous.
Staff Writer; Bobby Poole