Developing a better business communications strategy

Communications can cause issues in even the most established organisations. Money, morale, retention, and more are all made or broken by company comms. With many businesses now adopting a hybrid working model, communications policies are being revised and evolved to meet the new demands of staff, suppliers, clients, and other key contacts. Miscommunication, muddled messages, and indistinct instructions can create confusion at best, and catastrophe at worst for a business. So how can you avoid the pitfalls of poor communications?

How to improve business communications

The key to better information sharing is understanding how business communications affect your staff, clients, and suppliers. Once the impact is understood, there are many ways to improve these practices: from off-the-shelf software to fully-bespoke solutions. We have identified some of the top technology approaches that companies should consider adopting or enhancing when aiming to improve their business communications strategies.

Omnichannel

In the world of communications, convenience is king. The average person has at least five social media accounts, and will often interact with these, along with their email accounts, via their smart phones, which they will also use for texting, voice calls, and video calls. Assuming our hypothetical average person only has one email account, that's still nine different channels through which they can potentially be contacted. And that's ignoring traditional post being sent to their home or office. Being able to reach customers and staff on the channels they find most convenient is vital for a successful communications strategy. Omnichannel communications software keeps conversations up to date across all channels, providing choice for your contacts in how they prefer to communicate with you, but also offering flexibility if they decide to change their preferred means of communication. This greatly improves the chances of your communications being observed and acted on in the way you want.

Real-time chat

Real-time chat applications are invaluable communications tools for remote and onsite workers alike. They enable instant contact with colleagues, involving as many or as few participants as needed, without disrupting other parties. Such applications will often also facilitate the secure and immediate sending of files, documents, videos, and photos. Beyond a company's staff members, chat solutions can also be used for quick and secure communication with contractors and suppliers, making your resource planning more flexible, and your order tracking more reliable. You can even use real-time chat technology to stay in touch with clients and keep up to date with their requirements and circumstances, while ensuring they always receive prompt responses to their enquiries.

Video chat

White labelled video conferencing software is an endlessly powerful tool for businesses, making it possible to host meetings and events in a digital space that until recently would have required a physical location and in-person attendance, along with all the associated costs and logistical problems these can notoriously accumulate. Conferences, lectures, seminars, group meetings, and classes can all be conducted with any sized audience and any number of participants, from any location. Platforms can also be designed to capture delegate details, take payments, sell tickets and products, as well as put a spotlight on calls for speakers or hosts. Video chat as a business tool gained significant popularity during the pandemic, and is showing no signs of going away even as businesses return to normal operation. It has shown itself to be a vital tool for companies working across various premises, as well as those whose interests are national, or indeed international. The increased use of video chat tools has led to demand for broader functionality, expanding the software's use way beyond simple screen-to-screen calls, and making it a highly advantageous asset to any modern business.

CRM

Client Relationship Management (CRM) platforms are THE tool for busy sales and marketing teams. Store and organise all contact information, and record contact events between you and other parties. These tools can also be developed to work alongside your email servers, chatbots and more to ensure audio, video, and text is securely captured, giving you and your team further insights into what is going on when your clients engage with you. This helps you streamline your sales processes and identify ways to enhance products and services.

When configured correctly, CRM platforms can become the heart of your business, pumping contact data through integrated email servers, billing software, chatbots, printers, and any other systems in your business that rely on contact information.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI chatbots are increasingly becoming a valuable tool for busy Customer Experience (CX) teams. Gone are the days when it was feared AI would take jobs from CX specialists; today businesses understand that chatbots are just another tool that teams can use to help them deliver even better customer service. With AI fielding simple requests and automating pleasantries, CX specialists are free to focus on more complex queries and identify upsell opportunities. AI chatbots also present the option of communicating with your customers regardless of the time or the location, without the need to have employees working shifts, or offices based in multiple locations. All this contributes to significantly improved customer experiences, with CX roles adding even greater value to the customer, and communications becoming more efficient.

Virtual Reality (VR)

While VR might not be the first thing you think of when devising a business communications strategy, its application to both staff and customer comms has grown in importance since the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses needed to find new ways to showcase their products and services to customers without physical interaction. VR offered an ideal solution, often enabling businesses to demonstrate the value of their products before production had even begun. Customers are now able to experience products and services that don't even exist yet, and all from the comfort of their homes.

Recruitment was also tough during the pandemic, with businesses turning to voice and video interviews in place of traditional face-to-face meetings. However, this still left the issue of training new employees once they'd been successfully recruited. VR came to the rescue again, immersing staff in the business and presenting them with learning and training tools in the applicable contexts, all from remote locations.

While VR used to be limited to the realms of gaming, its business applications have now been realised and continue to grow. The benefits to sectors like real estate, interior design, and manufacturing are immediately apparent, but industries ranging from data visualisation consultancies to dental technology providers are also incorporating VR into their communications strategies, bringing businesses closer to their staff and customers than was ever possible before.

Smart documents

Boring bills and lacklustre letters are a thing of the past. Today, your customers want documents they can interact with, documents that offer experiences beyond reading or submitting a simple form. Smart documents are platform-agnostic, so your customers can access all the information they need on any channel. They enable you to imbed content like videos, audio clips, hyperlinks and action buttons to offer your audience a truly immersive experience.

The enhanced functionality of a smart document allows you convey much more information than is possible with traditional documents. Accessing and understanding this information becomes easier for the recipient too, which results in higher levels of customer satisfaction, while also meaning your audience has a better understanding of your business.

Your journey to better business communications can start right now with a message or a phone call! Tell us about the improvements you're interested in, or drop us a line on +44 (0) 8456 808 805 today.

Being able to reach customers and staff on the channels they find most convenient is vital for a successful communications strategy.