Excellent communication is important for every business, and when you’re working remotely, great communication becomes even more critical. To improve your comms, you need a plan, and you need the right tools. To get started on the road to communication success, have a gander at these 8 neat ideas.
Communication with staff
Collaboration Software
One of the easiest ways to improve communication between staff is to use the right platforms. There are many different options, including:
Podia: With Podio collaboration software, your teams can communicate to produce the best outcomes on their projects. The Podio system puts content and convos on a centralized platform to streamline the collaboration process. Podio includes tools for task management, file sharing, meeting scheduling and automated workflows.
Chanty: Chanty is an easy-to-use comms application which allows your team to connect using the cloud. Chanty offers a simple real-time messaging solution, helping staff to consolidate the info they need on one application. Chanty is an AI-powered app, so your staff are only presented with the conversations that are relevant to them.
For further collaboration software options check out tools such as High Five, Zoho Cliq and Microsoft Teams.
Establish Comms Guidelines
For remote working to be effective, it’s important to establish communications guidelines. These guidelines should determine which type of communication you’ll use and when it’s appropriate to communicate. Your guidelines should set out how official matters are communicated and which hours instant messaging apps can be used. The best thing to do is to create an employee handbook so that everyone understands what’s expected of them.
Check-In Frequently
Ensure that you check-in with your team regularly, catch-ups are excellent for morale as well as project queries. Schedule a casual Zoom meeting at least a few times a week; it doesn’t have to be a long-meeting, something short and sweet will do just fine! Working remotely can feel isolating for some people, and so even a quick catch-up here and there can do wonders for the wellbeing of your staff.
Company Culture
Working remotely doesn’t mean that you should neglect your company culture. It’s still important to create a strong company culture and retain a social side to your business. One thing you could do is to set up social events, for example, quizzes on Zoom. Keep up your ‘employee of the month’ competitions and offer digital vouchers as prizes.
Communication with customers
To improve your communication with customers, you can try the following ideas.
Virtual Receptionists
Virtual receptionists can help you to improve the communication between your company and your customers. Virtual receptionist services perform call answering services, from a remote location, provided by a third-party service. Virtual receptionists will answer your calls 24/7. With calls answered around the clock you’ll improve your customer experience when you choose virtual receptionist services.
Chatbots
Many consumers prefer to converse over messaging chat, it’s not uncommon that one of your site visitors will have a quick query, that they want solved there and then. Whether it’s a question about delivery, your app, or a problem with payment, chatbots can handle all these queries and more. Like virtual receptionists, chatbots can answer customer queries 24 hours a day. You can also use chatbots to collect customer feedback or improve your marketing tactics.
Timely Social media response
Building an online presence is vital for any modern business. To improve your communication on socials you need to engage with every one of your customers. It’s important to reply to all comments in a timely manner; this includes both positive comments and complaints. Falling to respond to your audience on social media is viewed as poor customer service. Brands should ensure that this is avoided at all costs.
Improve Your Response Times
Many customers become frustrated when they are waiting for days to get an email response. It’s not always possible to solve a problem within a short time frame, but what you can do is offer an immediate response to inform the customer that you are dealing with their query. The speedier responses you can provide, the better. It might be a case of adding extra staff to pick-up emails, or setting notifications on response time-frames.
It’s helpful to ask your customers for feedback; their ideas could help you to improve your communication even further. In 2020, audiences simply love live video, so why not add live streaming to your marketing strategy? Live streaming can be used as a form of both communication and engagement.