3.3 Communication in business

Ways of communicating in a business context

There are lots of ways that businesses can communicate within or outside the business. Within a business, employees may need to talk via phone, email or text to complete work, and outside of a business they may send marketing emails or letters to customers.

Form	Uses	Advantages	Disadvantages
Letter	Send promotions to customers Discipline/inform employees	Formal Business can keep copies as proof	Slow delivery Becomes expensive
Email	Send information to stakeholders/ customers Inform employees about tasks and updates	Immediate delivery Inexpensive	Easily ignored or moved to spam May not be secure
Text	Send customers delivery updates Quick messages to employees	Immediate delivery Checked regularly	Seen as informal Could be ignored or moved to spam
Phone	Customer support and questions before buying Talk to colleagues in different locations easily	Not ideal for long discussions One-on-one, real-life interaction	Typically more time consuming Bad signal means calls may not be received
Meeting/presentat ion	Present products to customers in real life Hold engaging, meaningful meetings	Easy to collaborate with colleagues Possible to give lots of detail and information	Can be time-consuming Could me inconvenient for those at different locations
Social media	Marketing and advertising to customers Sharing updates with stakeholders and community	Easily reach a large audience Encourages customers to engage and interact	Time-consuming and costly for someone to manage Seen as less formal
Website	Provide information to customers, stakeholders and investors	Can be used to sell online, 24/7 New traffic from search engines	Poorly designed sites discourage customers Website could be hacked or may crash

Written and verbal communication

Verbal communication is spoken, such as a presentation, meeting or phone call. Written communication would be something such as an email, letter or text message.

Advantages of verbal communication	Advantages of written communication
Immediately check if information has been understood	Not always possible to see if receiver has actually received or understood message
Easier to emphasise certain points	Records are easier to keep
Can use diagrams and slides to better explain information	Receiver can re-read message until they understand it or keep it for later

Importance of business communications

• Share important information needed to make a decision
• Solving problems as a team is more efficient
• Improves employee satisfaction, reducing absences
• Share promotions online
• Create customer loyalty

The influence of digital communication on business activity

Examples of digital communication are emails, social media, text messages, phone calls, video calls and online chats.

• Formal communication: communication that has been recorded
• Informal communication: communication that hasn't been recorded
• One-way communication: manager gives instructions
• Two-way communication: communication between manager and subordinate
• Horizontal communication: communication between workers in different departments
• Vertical communication: communication up and down organisation structure

These help a business by:

• Improving customer satisfaction
• Improving productivity in teams
• Improving customer service
• Improving speed and accuracy of information
• Access to a wider audience online