In Communication We Trust

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Communications Management   CRM   Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned   Stakeholder Management  

We all use a variety of ways to communicate. With the addition of more technologically based communications, we’ve expanded our ability to exchange information--but not our skill in the messages we deliver.

There are a number of methods that purport to be more “friendly” or, to overuse a term, “social”. However, many of them have less controls in place for formal communications. They allow us to provide a more candid voice to our customers and give us a means through which we can be more relaxed in how we communicate with them. But doing so does have a cost…

Style Matters
We all communicate in a variety of ways and yet many of us make assumptions that we know how others communicate. We take for granted what is being communicated and thereby make a number of mistakes. We become impatient if others are not able to keep up in a conversation. We rush questions without waiting for a proper reply. We don’t wait for individuals to finish their message before we interject. We neglect to observe various clues (for example, body language, facial expressions, gestures, intonations, etc.) to help us determine how the exchange is progressing. We exclude others that are in a shared conference when discussing matters. The list goes on.

Regardless of your communication style and the means through which you decide to communicate to …

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