“Success lies in the hands of effective communication” and for any business, “Excellence in communication” is evaluated on how well acquainted the employees and managers are with each other.
The whole idea of internal communication in terms of business means active exchange of information, attitudes and opinions within an organizational framework.
If the communication fails at its’ effectiveness, it will reflect at each point scarily without pronouncing itself until it is too late. According to a research by Ieva Kukule, Internal Communication Crisis can lead to the following:
- Lack of vision
- Lack of leadership
- Non-existence of organizational values
- Development of informal relationships within the organization
This in turn can create a negative sentiment in the market and loss of business opportunities. Therefore, it is important for every business to manage its communication processes and build a strong image.
Internal communication acts as a binding force helping all the people in an enterprise to connect and achieve the shared organizational goals. Since a business may operate from multiple places, it is important to keep the management aligned.
There needs to be a system to ensure smooth interactions in a professional set up. You, as a business owner should be able to ascertain that the communication taking place within the organization falls in the right place.
In the situations where the conversation is happening via emails, a ticket support system like pipedrive or Freshdesk can provide proper management. For conversations happening via phone calls, whether talking to a customer or an employee, an efficient call management system can ensure that interaction among teammates and managers within the company are properly monitored and accounted for.
Whatever system you chose to implement, here is what you should look for in your setup, to ensure good communication flow:
1. Provide accountability for the employees
A manager or a team leader has multiple tasks to perform and therefore it is not always feasible for him to micro-manage. Your communication management tools must empower the team to manage their tasks. You need to have a mechanism to ensure that every employee can keep a track of his own customers. This enables each employee to take up responsibility for their own work while eradicating miscommunication at an individual level.
2. Fasten-up those responses
Customers are impatient and demand quick response. This can only be achieved when the communication flow within the organization is smooth. These days customers mostly email or call for their queries. You need to look for tools based on cloud, to ensure that the location of your team does not impact its ability to respond. If you are using an internal intercom, for instance, it will make it mandatory for the employee to be present in the office.
If you chose to use a virtual number instead, your employee can take the IVR calls on their mobile numbers. The larger idea is to transform “not-reachable” into “reachable”. For your email ticketing system, you need to set the turnaround timelines and ensure that the team sticks to it.
3. Preserve that communication flow
You need to see that the communication process between two members within the organization is smooth and fast. Have you set a communication flow for dealing with technical glitches? Is there a way to mark emails or calls as urgent? Are there procedures set which demand same day reply in case the email is marked urgent?
The larger idea is to see that the different departments work in synchronization with each other.
It is necessary to keep the flow of correspondence right. Building a good customer face comes as a side-effect of proper internal communications.
Have you got your’s right?
[box type=”shadow” ]About the Author: Arundhuti Roy is a BA (Hons) English from University of Delhi. She is an active social media content writer and works with an advertising agency and an NGO. Currently she is a digital marketer at Voicetree Technologies Pvt. Ltd.(http://myoperator.co/)[/box]