Competent and thoughtful business management is a combination of many factors. A clear vision of the final result, a strong team, knowledge of the target audience, and the ability to analyze and make forecasts – all these factors affect the achievement of the final result. Being able to analyze and make the right decisions in time is more important than the skills of any manager. What about customer interaction? Does communication affect the efficiency of work and development?
Why are communications important for business?
In fact, the answer to the question is simple. A brand or company cannot exist without customers, because they form the demand for the product. There is demand, there is profit. There is profit, so there are resources for functioning and further development. Any successful businessman will say that proper communication and interaction with customers help to develop and scale the business. Therefore, it is not just necessary to interact with clients, you need to build strong and long-term communications with them if you want to successfully build your business!
Simple ways to improve communication with customers
The main secret of building strong relationships with customers is proper communication. Moreover, this applies to both personal and professional spheres. In business, competent communication allows you to win loyalty, which brings repeat purchases and good reviews to attract potential customers.
Today, a successful business uses various methods to communicate with partners and customers, including the use of IT services. With their help, you can use one platform for both project management and customer interaction. For example, Microsoft Teams or Slack (which we’ll talk about below) do an excellent job with such tasks. Focus on the qualitative component of the process.
- Customer satisfaction largely depends on the first impression. To respond to customer requests on time, you’ll need to build certain workflows
- Take care of reducing the waiting time. Customer waiting times should be kept to a minimum. Insufficient service speed is one of the main reasons for customer disappointment
- Use pre-prepared scenarios. During communication with clients, there should be no misunderstanding. Create special scenarios that will take into account all potential questions and answers
- Use communication tools. The right tools will make communication more effective
What about Slack?
Slack is a systematized corporate messenger with flexible functionality. It is a powerful platform for organizing and optimizing workflows and project management. The IT service is among the top most popular and effective business applications. Moreover, its size and scope of activity are not important. Small IT teams and startups use Slack to work in the same way as large and well-known brands. The platform has millions of active users and thousands of positive reviews. These indicators are growing every year, along with the improvement of the application. This speaks better than any advertising about the effectiveness of the product for business development.
Powerful communication functionality
The developers position Slack as a business messenger. Indeed, the platform has powerful functionality for organizing communication and interaction between employees. Communication takes place in personal and group chats, which are called channels here. For group communications, it is possible to create separate channels where participants can be invited. Channels can be open (any team member can join) and private (available only by invitation).
Participants can customize the application according to their wishes. Slack offers great opportunities for setting up and editing chats, as well as useful tools for communication.
- Send messages (a standard feature of all messengers)
- Add reaction — add reactions to messages if you don’t want to write, but you need to react
- Share message
- Reply to Thread — respond to specific messages by commenting on them (thereby creating a discussion thread for a specific message)
In addition, you can set up automatic notifications for important messages, for example, by keywords. Have you lost important information? Find it by searching by tags or phrases!
Are there other ways to communicate? Yes, these are video calls and voice messages. These are excellent solutions for discussing current tasks and new ideas. Share information with colleagues, send emojis, and exchange documents! Slack does not limit you in choosing ways of communication and interaction.
The above features are intended for communication between team members within the project workspace. Is there an opportunity to interact with potential partners or clients? Yes, you can integrate third-party applications that will extend the standard functionality. New tools, such as VoIP services, will help to raise the level of external communications and use the business phone more effectively. Use Slack SMS to discuss important messages wherever you are, communicate with potential partners, send mass mailings with offers, process customer requests, and much more! Slack is a powerful tool for effective internal and external communication, and hence the development of your business!
Additional advantages of the business platform
Slack has everything you need for effective employee interaction and communication. But it is popular among startups and businesses not only because of this. The digital platform offers even more opportunities that you can use to develop a project in any field of activity.
First of all, we are talking about integration with third-party applications. The Slack library has several thousand IT services, including both popular applications and new products. By installing the necessary services, you will receive a set of tools for project management and development. Now everything you need is in a single workspace.
The next important point when choosing a digital platform for business is a flexible pricing policy. If you don’t have extra funds at the first stages of development, then you can use the free Slack version. It’s still the same tool with a few limitations. In the future, if the need arises, you can upgrade to the full version.
Successful business development is not as easy as it seems at first glance. This is hard work that requires concentration and resources. Communication within the team and with potential customers is an important factor for functioning and development. At the same time, business development is closely connected with the use of IT services and digital technologies. These are always new ideas and new solutions to business challenges!
vinay