How do businesses manage the continual influx of information? Various internal and external communication methods are vital to the success of an enterprise company.
Although the stages that consumers and employees go through may vary, a key goal of the communication process is to deliver the right messages and ensure all audiences understand them.
However, without effective communication, businesses can fall apart. Identifying barriers to successful business communication or devising efficient strategies can help improve corporate and brand communication.
To connect with employees and their target audiences, companies must effectively manage information flow and streamline workflows to ensure no communication is missed.
Let’s delve into why communication is crucial for business growth and how you can utilise dynamic communication tools and software to ensure effective interaction with your organisation’s stakeholders.
What Is Business Communication?
From a business perspective, companies use communication to process and deliver information to employees, clients, investors, partners, or the media.
Through business communication, companies can:
- Disseminate information across various digital channels
- Send information to multiple departments
- Manage internal and external communications
- Close business deals
- Oversee organisational marketing tasks
Today, business communication extends beyond phone calls and paperwork. Technology has transformed how consumers, employees, and businesses interact. Now, information flows through various channels, including:
- Mobile devices
- Messaging programs
- IVR systems
- Chatbots
The diversity of businesses in the market results in various communication approaches, and the types and objectives of communication can differ from one company to another.
Here are some common communication outcomes companies aim for:
- Keeping Employees Informed: Providing essential information about the company’s offerings and training employees to communicate the company’s main benefits to customers and other audiences.
- Leveraging Leadership Communication: Leaders must maintain staff morale during meetings, team-building events, and daily interactions.
- Practicing Clarity: Clear communication is essential for high employee engagement and productivity levels. Clear communication on best practices motivates employees to meet KPIs and leverage current trends.
- Automating Marketing Processes: Approximately 58% of marketers highlight that timely communication is a key benefit of automation. Brands can enhance internal and external communication by accessing audience insights, personalising the customer journey, providing high-quality customer support, and pinpointing successful touchpoints.
As business communication is largely goal-oriented, brands often need to communicate specific rules, company policies, and regulations to employees, clients, and external stakeholders. While business communication can be complex, it is a foundational element for decision-making and a critical success factor for any company.
What Is the Role of Communication?
Every business has its own norms, rules, and regulations, many of which centre around internal communication. For example, improving how meetings are conducted can greatly improve team communication and collaboration.
Let’s explore how communication affects different areas of a business.
Fostering Everyday Decision-Making
Decision-making is a fundamental aspect of any business. Communication allows companies to connect with consumers and employees, share ideas and marketing solutions, discuss plans for product enhancement, and inspire ongoing learning among employees.
Running Effective Meetings
Meetings are a common practice for addressing daily work issues. The standards for these meetings depend on the specific team and organisation, but they are crucial for fostering strong internal relationships. One of the core functions of brainstorming sessions and team meetings is to tackle specific issues or solutions while company executives or team leaders ensure clarity in employee communication.
Connecting With Consumers
Direct contact has not been the sole method of attracting customers for some time. However, poor communication or bad timing can reduce conversion and retention rates. Effective marketing communication strategies depend on accurate audience segmentation and targeted messaging. Access to demographics and psychographics can enhance marketing efforts, narrow focus, and deliver relevant information to the right audiences.
Improving Employee Retention
Employees usually want to keep jobs they genuinely enjoy, but poor communication and lack of empathy can lead to higher turnover. Effective communication can either decrease or increase employee turnover. A supportive work environment and engaging employees in innovation meetings can help retain top talent.
The Principal Goal of Business Communication
The primary goal of business communication is to ensure clarity and understanding. Whether the receiver is a customer or an employee, they are on the receiving end of the communication process. Each receiver has specific feelings and ideas that influence their response. As a communicator, it’s important to be aware of these feelings and ideas, consider them, and craft messages that elicit the desired actions and reactions.
Business Communication Types
Historically, people have used a mix of verbal and nonverbal communication, even during phone calls. In business, message clarity also depends on visual and written communication. Delivering information in multiple forms simultaneously can be beneficial in face-to-face or virtual meetings, though it may not be practical for customer support interactions.
Internal Communication
Internal communication can be upward or downward, depending on the organisational hierarchy. Information from a subordinate to a manager is conveyed upwards, such as through surveys, sales reports, feedback forms, requests, or disputes. Downward communication occurs when superiors pass instructions to staff through managers, including job instructions, specific procedures, performance feedback, or onboarding documentation.
External Communication
External communication functions similarly. When a company needs to send essential data, such as annual reports, to stakeholders or business partners, it uses external upward communication. External downward communication happens when an external party, such as a stakeholder, initiates the communication process, including requests regarding sales indicators, product training, or joint marketing plans.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Business Communications
Assessing how effectively employees communicate is closely tied to measuring their level of engagement. These evaluations provide valuable insights into staff commitment, work ethics, and communication abilities. Active listening and effective communication are indispensable for employees across all business sectors. Without rapport and mutual understanding among coworkers, companies struggle to maintain high productivity and efficiency.
Employee Productivity
Evaluating employees’ communication skills and productivity is crucial for customer-facing companies in sectors like insurance, home services, or financial services.
Employing a marketing automation solution such as Call Logic, Phonexa’s call intelligence platform for call tracking and distribution, can enhance verbal communication processes. Call Logic enables businesses to track calls, utilise call data, address funnel leaks, and devise effective outbound call strategies.
Employee Engagement
Monitoring employee engagement levels is essential for every company. Key metrics may vary, but many organisations focus on open rates and click-through rates for internal communications.
Employee engagement surveys and feedback forms can provide data-driven insights into engagement levels. Establishing a benchmark can serve as a reference for future efforts. Additionally, short pulse surveys can gauge the emotional aspect of internal communications.
Based on feedback, HR departments or company executives can launch programmes or activities to support work-life balance and established workflows. These activities might include training programmes, sports events, or themed meetings to foster company spirit. Creating a supportive work environment allows staff to share feedback and suggest improvements.
Business Communication Trends
Progress in business communication continues unabated. Here are some current trends that businesses should follow to maintain thriving workspaces and drive growth.
Digital Workspaces
Modern workspaces are increasingly fluid, with collaboration occurring both digitally and in the office. One trend is the use of collaborative digital workspaces that enable staff to share ideas, co-edit documents, delegate tasks, and communicate in real-time.
Marketing Automation
Automation solutions help companies reduce hardware costs, improve customer relationship management, streamline workflows, share data across departments, and maintain a consistent business identity regardless of employees’ locations. From a communication perspective, marketing automation provides brands with critical customer data, allowing them to adjust marketing messages and maintain accuracy.
Messaging Services
Employees need direct communication with team members in addition to video calls and email threads. Messaging platforms like Slack enable staff to share information across teams effortlessly and can be easily integrated into digital workplaces.
The Pivotal Role of Business Communication
A brand’s success depends on effective information sharing within the business. Whether communication is verbal, nonverbal, visual, or written, learning to communicate effectively is vital for a company’s success.
Though complex, effective business communication can improve customer satisfaction, the company’s image, employee productivity, and engagement levels.
Book a demo and take an interactive product tour to learn how Phonexa enables companies to optimise their internal and external business communication and maximise efficiency and productivity.
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