There are various factors that determine the culture of a company- the attitude of the owners, ethics of the management team, transparency, governance, priorities of the business and a lot more. But above all, it is how the company ‘communicates’ – both internally and externally.
Communication is going to determine how the world is going to perceive you. And the same applies to a company – as well as to any organization, community and to a country as well.
There is an amazing government Ad campaign that runs in Australia – it has a newly joined female employee working at a bakery. A customer walks in and asks her for a specific type of bread. After messing around with a lot of options she finally finds the one – but it is uncut and the customer now wants it cut. She looks around and her colleague is on a call, so she goes ahead and hesitantly turns the cutting machine on and inserts the bread with her hand and— ouch ! cuts her hand off. And a big message pops up – ‘It Does not Hurt to Speak Up.!‘ And hell it doesn’t. Its amazing how much difference it makes to the productivity of a company that has a free communication policy implemented within it. It is really important that employees are not shy or embarrassed to speak up and ‘ASK’.
It is also seen that people who ask without feeling embarrassed, are at a higher level of peace with themselves and are more open to helping others too.
Communication is the ultimate key – key to relationships, key to growth and key to freedom. It is the way employees communicate with their boss and vice versa, the way sales communicates with prospective customers, the way project managers handle client communication, how the management communicates with employees, the board with the investors, how your Ads communicate with customers – all these factors are going to ultimately lead to the fate of your company. And with so much importance to communication , it is amazing how many businesses go ahead with no ‘policy for communication’. I think it should essentially be an integral part of the value system of the company.
From a customer’s point of view, many times, its the only thing that they want. Fair, true and timely communication is going to get you a satisfied customer and repeat business. Your customer is going to trust and refer your product or service only if he trusts the way you communicate, trusts that you are going to be there if something goes wrong. And this is where small businesses have a big advantage over the larger ones – they can give much more attention and personal communication. This is the reason people shift from large to small companies – if all I am going to get after calling a million times is a bunch of pre-recorded messages , its surely going to blow my head off.
This is where a Customer Relationship Management Software comes handy for any company. It will automatically communicate and most importantly, keep reminding you about the communication. Keep a track of all past communication and give you a good record of what went wrong and when. But no software is going to do any good to the company unless it is backed with a strong ‘policy of communication’ becomes a part of the value system of the company.
Walk in to Mcdonalds and 99 times out of 100, you will see a smiling face greet you. Walk into Vodafone and 8 out of 10 times you will see an over smart dork who doesn’t help you in any way. Well, these are just from some experiences but you for yourself must have come across countless such happenings. Dont you love it when something is wrong a product and you dial out a number that gets attended within 3 rings and has a person with a smile greet you happily. Mostly, even if you were intending to, you will not yell.
Communicate and your employees are going to stand with you through thick and thin, communicate and your investors are going to give you support during tougher times, communicate and customers are going to understand the thin case when you cannot deliver on time. Its one simple thing which, if incorporated can be one of the most powerful building block of your company. Just a policy that determines the habits of everyone in your company in doing ordinary things is what is going to take your company from being ordinary to extra ordinary.
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