No matter how small or how large your company is, efficient communication is vital to its continued success. Communicating everything from sale numbers to potential marketing plans is essential for everyone in your business to be on the same page, working toward the same goals. Incorrect, unclear or lagging communication can all work against your business’ success, so it’s critical to make your communications system as efficient and accurate as possible. Here are a few ways your business can start communicating more efficiently:
Determine Communication Protocols
While it’s a good idea to communicate with your team on a regular basis, it’s important to determine the best way to communicate different types of information. The four most common modes in use by businesses today are:
- Meetings: Meetings can be an excellent way to get together and discuss options for problem resolution or planning, especially for long-term issues, but they’re not ideal for essential team updates and requests since they disrupt the workflow of your employees. Meetings are largely considered the biggest time-wasters among modern employees, so be sure to use these only when it’s necessary for multiple people to be in the same room.
- Email: Email is a better platform for group-wide updates, requests and long-term projects, as they communicate ideas in writing for reference and can reach many people at once. However, emails are often not secure enough for delivering financial and health data.
- Online Faxing: Online faxing services for businesses pick up where email leaves off, with HIPAA and PCI-DSS compliant security that allows your team to communicate financial and health data to other locations or partners.
- Instant Messaging: Instant message systems in the office are becoming more popular for communicating simple requests, solving small issues and sharing information for immediate tasks, as it’s a perfect platform for quick, concise communication.
In addition to determining what mode of communication should be used in specific situations, also consider how these communications are to be saved or archived in a secure, yet accessible manner for later reference. Having access to these communications can be essential for later reference.
Remove Communication Hierarchies
Businesses used to have elaborate communication hierarchies, where decisions and communications must pass through various supervisor “checkpoints” before reaching a decision-maker. Such a structure creates bottlenecks and slowdowns as the checkpoint supervisors get overloaded with requests and communications, which is why many businesses have done away with the hierarchy and adopted team structures. These team structures are much more effective and efficient in their communication methods, with everyone working on the same level and communicating more readily with leadership. If your business has communication “checkpoints,” remove them to see how much more efficient your communication can be.
Focus on Clarity and Accuracy
It seems like a simple thing, but clear, accurate communication is something many businesses overlook. For this reason, it’s important to keep a few things in mind when communicating through any written medium:
- Edit for Clarity: While it’s tempting to send your first draft of an email, always go back and read your work with a critical eye to edit for clarity. The less clear you are in your words, the longer it will take to communicate your idea and get a task done.
- Avoid Colloquialisms: Using clear language is essential for quick communication — this includes using proper spelling and grammar and avoiding any slang. While you may know what you mean when you write something, your recipient may not.
- Check Facts: Getting the facts wrong doesn’t just look bad, but it slows down communication and productivity for you, your recipient and your team as you issue corrections, or, even worse, continue working with the wrong information. Make sure everything you say is correct before hitting the send button.
Implement Automation
Automating fundamental processes in your communications channels can save your business a significant amount of time and money. One of the best examples of this is in faxing automation. Several automation options are available for cloud faxing services, like Softlinx — for instance, the Softlinx ReplixFax system allows your business to submit fax jobs from your business application or document server directly to your fax service instead of going through the fax service API. It also offers the option to automatically file inbound and outbound faxes based on the data contained, so your staff doesn’t have to organize your faxes manually, and you can see the most critical faxes more quickly. All these options lead to less work for your staff and faster communication for your team.
Learn More About Cloud Faxing Automation
Learn more about how the Replix® cloud-based fax solution from Softlinx can help your organization make your business communications more efficient. Contact us today to schedule a Live Demo by calling at (800) 899-7724, emailing us at sales@softlinx.com or by filling out our form. Feel free to browse our solutions on your own, then reach out to get a quote.
