The way everyone communicates with others is so deep-rooted that no one really thinks about its importance in their daily lives. This holds true, especially during business communication. All companies are not faceless establishments, as they have real people who are working as a team.
Productive communications impact all aspects of a company, from the working style and efficiency of the employees to their morale and customer satisfaction. It helps strengthen decision-making skills and problem-solving proficiency.
Business Communication
Since time is considered money, especially for small businesses, effective business communication comes in handy for all types of businesses. Sometimes, even when all the team members are good communicators, business communication does not always need to be great.
When there are no proper schemes and support, the processes of effective business communication could get tricky. If the communication within an organization is not good, it could directly have a severe effect on the success of the businesses.
Apart from the way people within the organization communicate with each other, be it between team leaders, managers, colleagues, or even supervisors, business communication implies the way a company comes in contact with outsiders. Whether be it with shareholders, other business houses, their customers, and any other party outside their organization. This helps in knowing how companies react to external communication.
In short, communicating for business is the procedure of sharing information between people within and outside the company. Successful business communication helps both the employees, and the management reach their respective goals in the organization, which in turn helps improve practices and reduce errors.
The employees should work on their communication skills and processes to achieve effective business communication.
Types of Business Communication
Internal Upward Communication
This is the type of communication that the employee has with the manager in the organizational class system. Which includes performance reports, employees’ communication about their experiences along with suggestions of improvements. Even giving feedback to superiors about different aspects strengthens performance in job.
Internal Managerial Communication
This is downward communication, as it happens from the manager to the employee or any other person in the organization who communicates with someone below in the organizational hierarchy. It relates to directives received from higher to lower levels within the organization. Even memos, instructions, and other announcements of proposed actions helps prevent errors in operation and misunderstandings.
Internal Lateral Communication
Communication that takes place at the staff level helps ensure smooth communication between colleagues in different departments. This includes emails, meetings, and team orientations, which ensure that office tasks are better understood and correctly accomplished.
External Communication
These are corporate communications, which include conferences, meetings, webinars, and all meetings where an external party is present. When attending such events outside their organization, the employee represents their company.
Then come surveys that give a brief idea about the feelings of the customers regarding the company’s brand. These surveys are sent via email, through which valuable and usable data is collected.
Also, in the present day, many companies hire PR (public relations) firms to handle communications, especially with the press. All these forms of external communications benefit the companies.
Business Communication Channels
Depending upon the situation and the nature of the discussion following are the channels of business communication,
Communicating Verbally
Real-life conversations refer to communicating verbally, which is usually done between people via video or over the phone, and which helps express emotions through words. Even written communications like messages, emails, and texts fall under this category.
For verbal communications, platforms like VoIP Office are ideal as they have a team messaging element that allows the team members to chat and send documents.
Within a few clicks, the communication app allows users to make cloud-based phone calls to colleagues and clients. There is also an option for face-to-face video calls.
Communicating Nonverbally
Nonverbal communication includes communication that is done without literally saying any words. Here, the communications are done through facial expressions, body language, eye contact, and listening.
Communicating Visually
Businesses do visual communication through PowerPoint presentations, graphics, posts, photographs, signs, advertising and others. This type of communication is usually done during external communication. The company’s marketing team will be familiar with this type of communication.
Reasons for Effective Business Communication
A few reasons for having effective business communication in the company include,
Engage the Employees
Business communication helps in improving employee engagement as it is one of the most critical aspects of every business. Effective business communication helps in enhancing engagement with employees. According to Harvard Business Review, around 57% of the employees complain that they never received proper directions highlighting a gap in engaging employees through business communication. Apart from this, the study also found that 69% of managers are never comfortable in communicating with employees in general.
Switching to Audio/ Video Chat
By using VoIP Office, the user can send video meeting invites to teams’ email accounts. Real-time comments can also be made, assuring that everyone participating is on the same page.
Even the screen of the computer can be shared, which helps in the explanation of ideas that can be useful, especially when going over finer details of the project. Once the meeting is over, the recaps of the meeting, like recordings or even the minutes of the meeting, can be sent to the team, which helps the team to feel connected even when they are on the go, as it makes the employees feel they are indeed part of a team, thus strengthening their bond.
Team Building
Building strong team relationships is important because employees spend an important amount of time with their colleagues. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that communication relationships remain always strong. Presently, many are opting for flexibility at work, like part-time, remote work, or even flextime.
Businesses should always invest in software that supports collaboration. Many people agree that using technology helps them to be more connected as it helps in establishing significant relationships.
VoIP Office communication software helps in using team messaging platforms and video conferencing software, which gives team members the tools to stay in touch with colleagues even during remote working throughout the day.
Boosting Relationships with Customer
Relations with customers are an important part of any business, be it provisions for the general public or even back-to-back. Business communication through VoIP calls boost customer relationships, which helps customers remain loyal as they know the company is honest and transparent with them.
Having good business communication processes in place helps in dealing with complaints and concerns. Most of the issues that customers face can be resolved efficiently and quickly by making use of VoIP Office communication software that can be easily handled through social media inboxes, live chats, or even over a phone call.
Attain Business Goals
Business communication skills that are effective help the company to achieve its business goals. Company employees stay updated on the company goals helping them understand the plans they need to make to achieve their goals.
The team leaders should always communicate with employees in their teams, which will help them to know whether their team members are on track to complete projects on time.
Collaboration Gets Encouraged
Effective business communication in a company helps encourage collaboration and provides the employees with the right tools to communicate effectively and expertly with their colleagues. Since everyone in the company is not a natural communicator, it becomes important to provide communication tools like VoIP Office for help.
Providing critical information along with necessary tools to employees is essential especially when they opt for working remotely. When working on a particular task’ collaboration is the key, as it helps to follow strict guidelines and deadlines.
Culture of Communication
Those companies that are into communication in an open and transparent way have got a more positive work culture. Here, the atmosphere where the employees work will be healthier as they will be more engaged.
Whenever you create a culture of effective communication, all future employees will become aware of this during their onboarding. It becomes easy for the company to share their views whenever a new employee joins the company.
Nowadays most companies offer their employees the option to work remotely, that helps them to have a flexible work schedule. Collaborative communication software like VoIP Office makes it easy for the organization’s remote working team to adapt to this style smoothly.
Users can meet over the phone or use face-to-face video conference tools to catch up or do an important review. Through the VoIP Office messaging app/tool, teams can easily collaborate and share their files. It can also be used for sending messages, which is important for new employees who choose to work remotely.
Creativity is improved
When employees feel that their ideas are heard it boosts creativity in the workplace. People feel more empowered to make bold suggestions when they have a safe space to do so. That’s why team messaging platforms and project organization tools are important. Effective business communication tools like VoIP Office ensure that team members get help voicing their opinions.
Regular one-to-one meetings on video/voice conferencing platforms or even a group chat dedicated to new ideas from the employees help unleash the power of creativity.
Productivity is Increased
Around 74% of people lose their files that are not shared with others, and that is a reality for many businesses that do not have good communication tools. If a file regarding a project’s working procedures is lost in transition, then the time spent for retrieving those files could have been spent completing other new projects. It slows down a company’s workflow.
With the help of effective business communication tools like VoIP Office these events could easily be stopped from taking place. Make use of VoIP Office communication software for securely sending files that helps in organizing conversations with colleagues, by which precious time will not be wasted through emails for trying to locate important documents.
Selecting the Best Communication Tools
A few points to consider when selecting the best communication tools,
Cloud-Based & Fast Setup
Cloud-based tools allow employees of the company to access information from anywhere in the world, which makes it ideal for communication and it is mainly for global companies with branches worldwide. These global companies can share files and communicate with each other through cloud storage.
Selecting the tool that requires minimum configuration allows it to easily blend into the existing infrastructure, reducing downtime and allowing the team to start work quickly.
Solve Practical Business Requirements
Giving thought to the practical nature of each available communication tool helps in focusing on the important features and they help in connecting with each team’s specific needs. Instead of focusing on pointless features the new AI functionality sounds excellent. This is indeed a cutting-edge technology. However, the organization should reconsider whether the switch is necessary if the features used do not require this function.
Integration With Existing Application
With an established business, there will be a few team communication tools that the company does not want to part with. Therefore, any new platform must efficiently integrate these features into the latest tools offered.
Desktop & Mobile Application
VoIP communication technology has advanced features, which have come in handy for a lot of employees working in teams remotely around the world. Selecting tools and features that help teams to work remotely increases productivity in the right way for the team members.
Mobile & Desktop apps ensure that the teams who are working always stay connected. It helps them to be productive from their worksite, homes and even while working from a coffee shop. This helps to bridge the existing gaps, if any, between on-the-go workspaces, homes, or even offices.
Workable Pricing Plans
Accepting the tools offered with the correct pricing options helps scale up businesses, as the pricing plans are more flexible. It also provides more advanced benefits for bigger teams. As the business expands, select the communication tool that can easily adjust and meet every day needs right from the start.
Business Communication Set-Up Process
The happiness of customers and employees is essential to maintain a solid business communication process that leads to economic stability. Many employees say that their internal business communication tools do not work successfully. A few reasons include information overload. Apart from that lack of transparency, organizational silos, or even the absence of suitable communication channels happens to be a formidable reason.
At present, it is clear that companies must improve business communication within and outside the company. Follow these steps to improve business communication,
Audit State of Business Communication
Auditing the state of business communication to set goals is essential as it helps ensure effective communication. Focus on the areas that need the improvement first and then move on to other area code as progress is made.
Identify Core Groups
Identifying core groups in the company and their relationship with each other helps the organization to function correctly. Knowing different departments like marketing, operations, human resources, design, customer, sales, team leaders, department managers, partners, suppliers, and others helps an organization to assess the work. It could be on a daily basis along with the best results. It enables companies to plan their communication strategies for their tasks and make use of right communication tools to get their things done.
Methods of Communication
Selecting the best methods for communicating effectively helps to interact between core groups of the company. Reviewing the list of communication tools for telephone meetings, video conferencing, web-based communication, surveys, sending of reports, official documents, and other required options helps the organization to achieve its goals. Being realistic about specific requirements allows the company to be realistic about the particular needs they require.
Selection of the Right Communication Tools
There is no specific rule that states which tools are essential and best for each purpose, like Gmail v/s Outlook or Dropbox v/s Google Drive. A few tips for selecting the right tools are,
- Make use of cloud storage to preserve important documents and various other data.
- Enabling automatic sync & backup helps in avoiding human error and helps forget to save the information manually.
- Making use of a single platform for calendars and emails.
- Making use of VoIP Office tool for chat messaging.
- Develop the company brand and implement a dependable VoIP Office communication system for meetings that happen remotely.
Process Documentation
Taking note of everything done on a daily basis and properly processing it into a shared document will help the entire organization access it. This approach allows every employee in the company to create a communication plan and decide the best action for any given situation. It will help, especially with the newly onboarded employees, besides it will help them learn the tools for effective communication.
You can create a recurring calendar reminder for everyone in the company to revisit the updated documents every quarter. This ensures that the plan serve its best purpose.
Company Success Starts with Communication
Customers cannot overlook the risks cannot that arise from poor communication. Having a good communication tool helps to maintain great communication and it will bring opportunities for outstanding employee along with customer engagement. It helps in creating more significant, clear outputs and helps grow revenue and profit. Whether having an effective business communication system in place and there is a need to establish a new one, a few things to keep in mind include,
- Revisit the communication goals based on the current state of communication in the company.
- Pinpoint those connected with the process that the company uses frequently.
- Examine the requirements of employees who need to communicate with each other. Taking everything into account, identify the best communication tool. It helps in making the information flow as smoothly as possible.
This will result in an organization having, happy, productive people who are excited to work on projects that will help create important results which will benefit all those involved.
Improve Business Communication
VoIP Office business communication platform helps organizations communicate efficiently with each other by using a single platform. You won’t have to stumble around for what you need anymore. As a result, there will be no more confusion, and thus, there is no flipping between screens. Everything will be there in a single platform. This will make the life of everyone in the organization well organized and brings all business communication into one easy view.
Talk to an expert at VoIP Office today, and we can help you with your business communication.