Across all industries, seamless coordination and efficient communication are critical to achieving success. However, despite their best efforts to streamline these elements of the business, SMBs still face common communication issues. Recognizing what these challenges are is the first step towards addressing them.
Take a look at the following four communication issues to find out what you can do to solve them in the workplace.
1. Inability to facilitate efficient business communications.
Businesses have to deal with a lot of stakeholders. Internally, you have to ensure constant communication between management and employees. Externally, you have to coordinate with customers, suppliers, and partners, just to name a few.
Often, companies make use of smartphones, laptops, and landlines – some of which are personal devices employees use for business purposes. This can make it particularly difficult to keep track of everything that’s going on. A missed voicemail here and a misunderstood email there can easily snowball into major communication problems.
An ideal solution would be to centralize all communications under one Hosted VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) platform. This can help minimize communication errors and ensure accessibility to everyone on the team.
2. Overcompensating for apparent communication issues.
If you’re running a business and you begin to notice there’s a lack of communication between yourself and team members, you tend to overcompensate. For example, because you feel that coordination may be lacking, you might end up calling your team constantly, or scheduling back-to-back meetings to address it.
The problem with this is that it can be interpreted by team members as feeling micromanaged, ultimately creating distrust in the workplace. In addition, it takes your team away from the actual job at hand.
On the other hand, if you have a way to effectively communicate with them, you can better ensure productivity. For instance, because a Hosted VoIP platform offers real-time messaging apps, you can more easily coordinate with team members at the speed of need. Mobile features also allow your team to use personal devices to talk and text from a business number.
Taking the time to figure out how you can deliver your message without pulling team members away from their jobs can make a big impact on productivity and working relationships.
3. Burnout caused by constantly being connected.
Smartphones and other mobile devices have allowed employees to be constantly connected – even after they’ve left the workplace. This can quickly lead to burnout if those employees are unable to delineate between work and personal time – which is common among those who use their own devices for business purposes as well.
To address this, start by encouraging employees to take some digital downtime. Simply turning off their notifications once they’ve left the office can be a huge help. Better yet, use technology to ensure that your team avoids being bombarded by work-related communication.
Features such as custom schedules, time-based routing, and Find Me/Follow Me, which are available in Hosted VoIP platforms, can automatically make it easier for small businesses to effectively manage communications for their team.
4. Scattered employee base.
It’s not uncommon for small businesses to allow employees to work remotely or to offer work-from-home programs as a way to reduce overhead cost. The challenge is not physically housing your team in a single office can cause a host of communication problems.
A Unified Communications solution is an efficient way to streamline coordination and ensure mobility and productivity at the same time. Integration with mobile features can help you talk, chat, and text with ease, ensuring efficient communication regardless of where your employees are physically located.
So don’t neglect and underestimate what effective, efficient, and seamless communication can do to support your company’s growth.
If you’d like to discover the benefits of using Hosted VoIP, get in touch with us today!