When it comes to technology, there’s always something new to learn. And if you’re not keeping up with the latest trends, your business could be at a disadvantage. We’ve come up with three ways to not only make your team more tech savvy, but improve communications within your team and to your customers. And before you start swiping you credit card and start buying ALL of the toys, hear us out.
Don’t start buying the most expensive item new tech toy just because a salesman said you need it. As fun as shiny toys may seem at first, they can end up over complicating things when your team has to take the time to learn how to use them, and use them appropriately.
First, think about your goal in communication your message. Do you know how to achieve it and what success looks like for this particular task or project? Address problems with clarity and precision by defining goals as precisely as possible, and then spice it up a bit with some of our recommendations.
Here are three problems you have probably experienced before and three tech savvy ways to fix them:
Problem: Long, difficult to understand emails
Solution: Send a video
Tool: Loom, JibJab, BombBomb
If you are writing an email with lots of content, it can take up a ton of time just to compose the message. This is especially true for long emails that include procedures or descriptions because they require so much detail! It’s often faster and more informative in these cases to pick up the phone instead. But what about when there’s some kind visual feedback involved? The solution: Send a video! Loom is great for sharing simple screenshares like spreadsheets, where-to click how to’s, or quick customer feedback. JibJab makes thank you cards and congratulations more interesting with their design tools. Bombbomb can supercharge your newsletters to make them come to life! As Mark Twain said, “I apologize for such a long letter, I didn’t have time to write a short one.” So remember, if it’s over 500 words, try using an alternative method to communicate.
Problem:Slow customer feedback, Wondering about communication
Solution: Email Tracking
Tool: Various CRMs
Have you sent an email to someone, but did not receive a response, and it’s making you a little paranoid- Did they receive it? Did they open it, read through quickly and forget to reply (Maybe because this person is super busy)? Am I going crazy or did something happen & now they are upset with me? You’re now afraid to send a follow up message for fear of annoying them. We have some suggestions on helpful tools that will never leave you wondering again!
Any good email campaign program will have engagement reports you can pull. These include detailed information on who opened it, and actions that they took (and when) like whether the recipient clicked through to anything in particular from your message or not. You can track this type of thing with many CRMs! These tools are great when you are emailing out marketing communications like news letters, but what about when you want to be sure that an important email was delivered to a prospective client, for example? Hubspot and Salesforce do this natively. The Hubspot blog provides a great, more detailed explanation about email tracking, if you’re interested.
Problem: Collaboration Issues – Your team is productive at different times of day or schedules don’t match to get everyone in the same room
Solution: Virtual brainstorming
Tool: Figma
There can be many challenges when trying to schedule a brainstorming session for your team. Introverts might be turned off by the idea of having to share ideas on the fly with everyone staring at them. Others might feel far more confident when they can prepare by having the information upfront and being allowed the time to put thought into their answers ahead of time. Still others can end up dominating the conversation and aren’t giving the rest of the team fair share of floor time. Another big obstacle is having remote employees with different time zones or team members that work best, say late at night. You may find it difficult getting slots where everyone focuses on what needs doing at any one moment.
We suggest scheduling a virtual brainstorm session in advance so that all members have ample time to process the material on their own before coming back together at one central (virtual) location within a certain timeframe/ window. For this, we love Figma. It’s an “all-in-one whiteboard for teams to ideate and brainstorm together”. Your team can collaborate at anytime during this window, and then you are able to schedule a session to review it all with your team.
We hope you enjoyed these suggestions and that it has given you some ideas for how to improve your own business communications. And as always, if you need help getting started with any of these programs or want to chat about how they can benefit your business, our team is here to help.
