Communications in a multi channel age

27 October, 2010

These days we can communicate with our family, friends, colleagues and clients using a wide variety of channels – from a formal letter to the highly informal tweet, over the phone, and face to face.

This variety of choice creates the opportunity to keep up to date and in touch far more easily than in the past. In business, the growth in SMS, email and social network creates further ways to communicate with employees, suppliers and customers.

This can create good avenues for flows of information, but if the right approach is not taken, can also lead to misinformation, disputes and breakdown of relationships.

A letter, as the only form of written communication, was seen as a formal document so great care was taken in the construction to ensure that the right message was delivered. Emailing and texting is now often seen as the first and quickest way of delivering short bursts of information.

People write with no thought of where and how their message will be delivered. This can turn a joking email or text into an aggressive piece of communication. Without the visual or verbal clues it is hard for the recipient to interpret irony or sarcasm as being friendly or aggressive.

The greatest danger is when the sender relies on existing relationships and assumes that their email will be taken in good spirit. I’m sure most of us have received emails when we are not in a good mood, and sent a scathing reply back to the sender, only to find out later that we had misinterpreted the intent of the original.

Given that emails are admissible to court and the potential of misinterpretation is high, I am trying to move my communications back into letter form.

While attaching a Word doc to an email may seem redundant, I find that the psychology of constructing correspondence on a company letterhead makes me consider carefully what it is I am saying, and the audience I am writing to.