Getting in touch with people should be a top priority for businesses. You need to contact suppliers to receive your manufacturing materials, your investors to receive finances, and your customers to make a sale. As always, technology has had an impact on almost everything in modern business- even how we communicate.
You can still use a landline phone to reach out to the people you need to connect with, but that isn’t how it is done anymore. As you are about to find out, there are plenty more effective ways that you can use to communicate with other people in the 21st century.
Emails
The simple electronic message replaced the written letter over twenty years ago, but it originated in the 1970s. Originally used as a less formal means of communication, email has done a complete 180 and has already become one of the most widely used and accepted forms of communication in the modern workplace. You have text messages and social media for informal messaging now.
Email is used as the primary communication method in business because it is fast, and you can tag multiple recipients in the same message. You can also use an email to send across important work materials like word documents and compressed PDFs. Compressing a PDF like this in an email can help it reach your intended recipient much faster.
Video Call
The video call is but another form of communication that too many people wrongly associate with the 21st century, although its origins can be found a lot further back than you may think. Facetime may have popularized the video call among the general public, but the first video call was made in the 1870s. Instead of connecting this historical call via the internet as you would today, the first video conference was achieved using audio wires.
Video calling is so popular today, that you can connect a video call using your PC or smartphone at any time so long as you both have a solid internet connection. What’s more, these calls are used for both work and personal reasons.
Marketing
Traditional marketing materials will try to convey a simple message in a short period of time, mainly explaining why a customer should pay to use this business. Marketing campaigns are tailored to be as unique as possible, and they can be placed:
– On the internet
– On TV
– On posters
– In magazines
– In audio formats
Social Media
Social media has been a constant presence on the web since 2004 when Bolt was released and it has been widely adopted by businesses in the last ten years or so. Remember Bolt? Not many people do. The world of social media has undergone a lot of change since its inception, so much so that it is unrecognizable to the original adopters of this technology. Users have seen a lot of huge platforms like Myspace come and go. What once was a digital space for people to share messages and photos across the web has now grown into an effective series of domains with limitless possibilities.
While many people use social media platforms to send informal communications to each other, there is a lot that a social media presence can offer a business in terms of communication. For starters, social media often features a timeline of events. As such, you can use this feature to spread important news statements about your company. You can also use social media to get in touch with specific customers and resolve any concerns with direct messaging.
Podcasts
There was a time when most people received audio communication via the radio. Nowadays, you are far more likely to get people’s attention with a podcast. Though they may only be a one-way form of communication, podcasts provide an online platform for companies to advertise themselves or share their ideas. What we consider to be podcasts today started in the mid-2000s, and they got their name from the media as a way to describe the fact that they debuted on an iPod. Now that the smart device market has diversified, you no longer have to only use an Apple device to listen to a podcast. So long as you have access to the internet and a set of audio speakers you can gain access to the millions of podcasts that are already saved and uploaded to the web.
A podcast is mainly used as a means of entertainment. However, a business can still use this communication method to share ideas or to spread news about its plans.
Blogs
Blogs are very similar to podcasts in the way that they are mainly used as a one-way means of communication. However, these written publications offer writers a bit more in the way of communication.
Most bloggers use this online space to share news and ideas just like a podcast. Although, readers can do more than just idly read or listen when engaging with a blog post. A lot of blog platforms will feature a comment section. This means that readers can post thoughts and reactions to the articles that they read. As the author, you can then follow up on these comments and answer any questions or queries that your readers may have.
Online Surveys
Your marketing strategy is the best way that you can get the information about your business out to your customers., but how are you supposed to know that your marketing and current business model is working as intended? The answer is simple. All you need to do is construct a series of online surveys.
People love coming across an online survey and it doesn’t matter what the focus of the survey entails. These short questionnaires can provide you with an accurate list of data that you can analyze to gain valuable information about your current marketing approach. Online surveys are another one-way communication method, only this time, the customer is giving details directly to you instead of the other way around. Some companies even pay people to participate in these surveys. Paying your participants may give people an incentive to take the time out of their day and give you the information that you need, But there is still a large section of the population that is happy to participate in an online survey for free.
Chat Bots
You would have to be Superman to find the time to monitor your company website to answer any questions that your potential customers may have. That is why online chatbots were created. These chatbots are automated text boxes that can interact with your customers whenever they visit your website. You can program these chatbots to help your customers navigate your web page or to provide the answer to some predetermined list of frequently asked questions.
If you wanted to give your customers a more in-depth conversation when they visit your site, you can always hire employees to monitor the chat feature. This approach provides your customers with a more detailed experience and can prevent your automatic chatbots from getting confused by overly complex questions.
Summary
You may not always feel like picking up the phone and having a full-length conversation with someone- especially if you have a particularly busy workday ahead of you. That is why modern technology has provided this list of alternative communication methods for you to use. A business operating in the 21st century can make use of every one of the methods discussed so far, so make sure you prepare yourself to start using them.