Better Business Communication Day: January 26, 2015

Better Business Communication Day: January 26, 2015

Think about the last time you did business with a company and thought "That was pretty negative!" (For me, it was as recent as today.) What kind of experience do your internal or external customers have?

Better Business Communication Day is a day to focus on better communication. Here are three actions you can implement, either for yourself, to improve your skills, or for your organization.

Start with non-verbal communication. Smile at two people today as you walk down the hall. Give someone your undivided attention, away from laptops, etc, making him or her feel valued and really heard.

Answer the telephone enthusiastically, each and every time. When you smile as you say "hello", the smile alters your mouth shape and the different resonance pattern can be heard. 

You can make a contest out of this. In Japan, this is a national event, the All-Japan Telephone Answering Contest

Thank someone, preferably in writing, for something specific he or she has recently done for you. When was the last time you received such a specific thank you?  Make the note more powerful by e-mailing it to the person's supervisor, with a bcc: to the person.

If you have difficulty being clearly understood due to a strong accent, try speaking slower. Also write down the words that are hard for others to understand. See if you can use synonyms for them, if needed. An online dictionary with a pronunciation button could help you say the words.
Consider getting a "mystery shopper" to act as a prospective customer, and rate his or her experience with your company's communication. He would start by rating how positive the first telephone greeting of "hello" sounded, through dealing with any phone trees,  enthusiasm and listening skills of the sales staff to answer questions and take an order, to the final good-bye. Another option is to send a pretend order through the system, to see where the bottlenecks are in the process. Often these are due in part to poor communication. The results of this mystery shopping could be ear-opening!

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Verbal mistake: The message is right, but something's missing!

Have you ever sent an e-mail, and found it was totally misinterpreted? The reason may have been that when you speak, your tone of voice conveys emotion, sarcasm, and interest (or lack of it). When you write, you choose a formal or an informal tone, active or passive voice, and assume your reader knows how you feel.

This can be easily misinterpreted. A formal note can seem to the reader like the writer has no interest. An informal note, meant to be sarcastic, can be interpreted literally.

The right choice of vocabulary can show your level of emotion and enthusiasm. Instead of saying you are looking forward to meeting the other person, try adding "eagerly" looking forward to meeting him.  Add other powerful words as appropriate.  Avoid sarcasm in a short note or text.

The true test of a well-written note is that it conveys the message you want, with the appropriate tone included. Is it to be formal, boring-but-have-to-write-something, or warm and caring?

In verbal and non-verbal communication, we also work to convey the proper attitude, whether eager, respectful but casual,   formal, etc. Our tone of voice,  use of slang, and choice of vocabulary can make or break this attitude.

Non-verbally, we use eye contact, giving full or distracted attention, and positioning (such as facing the other person directly or at a side angle) to also convey our attitude.

An example of this going wrong at work is when a manager uses a computer to answer routine e-mails during an appointment with an employee, telling the employee, "I can multi-task." The employee may feel the manager doesn't care about the appointment or the employee, due to his lack of full attention and eye contact.

Business Speech Improvement provides individual and small group coaching on communication skills. Visit us online!

Getting right to the point; changing your focus

Are you ever so focused on what you want to say when you go to see someone, that you forget to say "hello" first and see how the other person is doing? That's a common experience. You know it's rude, but you don't know how to change this.

When asked about this today, I advised the person asking me to imagine himself walking into his workplace and having a periscope rising from his head. Using the imaginary periscope, he is to look around and notice others, ask how they are doing, notice what they are doing, and only then to say what is on his mind. He may discover, for example, that when he notices his boss, she is in a bad mood or too rushed to listen to him at that time. He will know then to wait until another time to discuss the topic on his mind, or to see if someone else can help him.

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