Business communication is one of the essential tools you can use to keep your business running properly. This type of communication enables you to determine your employees’ and customers’ needs and wants and act accordingly. That is why improving business communication in your company can bring many benefits and contribute to overall productivity.
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However, to do so, you need to keep track of all the data that cycles around your company. There are various ways in which effective communication can benefit your company, but we will discuss them later on. First, let’s define what business communication is and look at all the different types.
What is Business Communication?
Business communication involves sharing information or transferring data between people (or from one company to another) within a particular workplace and outside the company. While it is a great method to manage tasks and optimize organization within the workplace, it is also an excellent way of keeping up with the needs of new and existing customers.
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There are some general “rules” in communication called the 7Cs. These rules can help you establish clear and coherent communication between people in a particular group (in this case, a workplace). Here are the 7Cs and what they stand for:
- Credibility-building trust between the communicators;
- Courtesy-establishing strong relationships;
- Clarity-keeping the data-sharing clear and coherent;
- Correctness-using grammatically and politically correct language;
- Consistency-ensuring stability between communicators;
- Concreteness-giving precise data;
- Conciseness-keeping the conversation precise.
Following these rules can make your business communication more efficient and your workplace more productive. These rules are especially important if you want to improve communication while managing a small business – these businesses need to focus on communication to establish a healthy work environment.
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Two Types of Business Communication
Business communication can be divided into two types: internal and external. As the name suggests, internal communication is communication between team members in a workplace. External communication is characterized by communicating with third parties outside the company (customers, press, sponsors, etc.).
These two types are equally important for creating and maintaining a healthy work environment. Here is what characterizes these communication types.
Internal communication
Internal communication is performed within a workplace where data is shared between employees, preferably through employee communication software. This type of communication can further be divided into three categories:
- Internal upward communication is characterized by reports that are delivered to the managers or CEOs. This type helps executives keep track of what is happening in the company.
- Internal downward communication starts from the management branch and goes to staff members. Managers deliver reports on procedures, organization, and other formal elements.
- Internal lateral communication is done between the branches themselves. For example, sales representatives communicate with finance teams and vice versa. Lateral communication enables teamwork between different branches in the same company.
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External communication
External communication consists of the company’s representatives’ communication with external parties or third parties such as sponsors, customers, etc. Sales representatives, for example, communicate externally with customers, in the attempt to sell products or services. Many multichannel contact center solutions come in handy here.
This type of communication is what brings the company growth and prosperity. Thus, it is vital to keep external communications friendly and professional. With this type of communication, the 7Cs can play a major role since these rules make communication effective and maintain good relationships with external parties.
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How Can Business Communication Benefit Businesses?
Effective business communication is one of the most important steps toward providing a productive workplace for your employees and securing prosperity for your company. We will list many benefits of establishing healthy and effective business communication below.
Breaks down communication silos
Communication silos imply a division within your company, such as branches that work independently from one another. However, all of these branches are a part of the bigger unit and thus need to cooperate.
You can use business communication as your most potent tool to achieve effective cooperation within a company. People will get to know each other better through meetings and team-building activities, creating a friendly work environment and a better collective.
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Enhanced employee productivity
Sometimes, employees may find themselves facing a problem they don’t know how to solve, and communication plays a major role here. All the employees need to be aware that they have someone to rely on, but to trust one another, efficient business communication needs to exist.
By mixing the previously mentioned internal business communication types, you will be able to create a safe space for all of your employees, thus enhancing their productivity.
Improved customer satisfaction
Customers are the gatekeepers of businesses, making customer satisfaction one of the major concerns of companies. To track customer satisfaction, you can use various customer service platforms. External business communication will provide your customers with security and trust. Here are some of how external communication can affect customer satisfaction:
- Better overall customer experience
Having excellent customer support and external communication will result in your customers trusting your company and relying on your company’s problem-solving skills. Friendly communication lets your customers know that you are here for them and ready to solve any problems that may appear.
- Boosts customer retention
As previously said, you gain trust by developing effective external communication with your customers. That implies that your company will gain loyal customers who will eventually recommend your company to others. There is nothing more important than keeping your customers satisfied.
As Connie Edler, a renowned financial consultant, once said, “Excellent customer service is the number one job in any company! It is the personality of the company and the reason customers come back. Without customers, there is no company!”
5 Easy Ways to Keep Track of Business Communication
Having to monitor both internal and external company communication can be overwhelming. However, there are a few simple methods that can make keeping track of business communications simple.
Collect communication from multiple channels into one place
As previously mentioned, there are different types of business communications, and keeping them all in one place is an excellent way to gain insight into all the data circulating around your company. Store your communication data close to you so you can easily access it whenever necessary.
Set up multiple autoresponders
Autoresponders are a great way of letting external parties know that you care for them without explaining it manually. Keep track of all possible situations that may come from outside your company and set up an auto-response for all of them.
The perk of this method is that you can gain insight into several conversations at once without needing to engage with each one individually.
Take advantage of filters and tags to organize interactions
Since companies usually have multiple branches, the scenario will most likely differ in all of them. To easily keep track of the business communication in all these branches and different situations, you should organize the said communications with filters and tags.
You won’t have to spend hours looking for a specific conversation – simply pull out the tag, and you will find it easily.
Monitor social media activity for data analytics
Social media has become one of the most-used communication tools. Many people market their businesses on social media to gain more attention. By using an efficient tool, social media can be a great way of analyzing external communication.
Determ provides an easy way to monitor your brand on social media gives you an instant overview of what people are saying about you directly through social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogs and Forums. You can create personalized reports based on your interest or get into advanced filters like sentiment score, language or geo location.
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By monitoring your social media activity, you can improve customer service and determine your audience’s preferences.
Identify key metrics that provide insight into customer and employee behavior
One of the easiest ways to track your business communication is by exploring customer and employee behavior. You can determine the most common problems and why they occur by identifying and using process library examples of the key metrics that provide insight into customer and employee behavior.
You will then be able to act upon these problems and solve the cause in no time, which applies to both internal and external business communication and can be a great problem-solving tool.
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Final Thoughts
Effective business communication is one of the most important ways of keeping a healthy and productive work environment. Moreover, business communication can improve third-party communication, such as customer communication, sponsor communication, etc.
By focusing on business communication, you will be able to improve your customers’ experience and make your business grow. As the saying goes: “Communication is the key” – this can be applied to any aspect of life and business.
However, keeping track of your business communication can be overwhelming, so we have presented some ways to make the communication tracking process easier.
Oliver Stasinszky is an outreach team lead at LiveAgent, with an e-commerce and customer service background. Passionate about writing, reading, and learning how to play any musical instrument he comes across.