Tips to Bring Your Office Communications Into the Modern Age

Bringing your communications systems up to date is vital for a modern business. This is particularly the case because these systems have changed significantly as technology has developed – there are more and more services that are intended to make communication for businesses. Here are a few tips to help you navigate, and make the best use of, the available options:

Internal and external systems

At work, informal communication happens among colleagues, employees and managers, as well as between the business itself and those who are external to it, such as customers or suppliers. Communication can be verbal or non-verbal and much of it is now focused on electronic media. Any form of communication is designed to transmit a thought, idea or message from one party to another, usually in anticipation of appropriate feedback. Communication aids understanding, therefore breakdowns can cause substantial problems.

Types of communication systems

While telephones, both landlines and mobiles, have been associated with verbal communications systems for a long time, new systems are offering faster, cheaper alternatives. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), for example, offers telephony via the internet to customers who have Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based trunking. If you’re currently wondering “what is SIP trunking?” then you need to know that when using cloud-based technology, it’s possible to make optimum use of the internet so that your business benefits from being able to engage in voice and video communication, as well as sharing media via streaming.

Additionally, SIP trunking allows you to share desktops and whiteboards as well as host web conferences. One of the chief benefits of VoIP is the low cost, high quality service it delivers. In fact, you can run a complete office phone system using cloud-hosted technology instead of paying the costs of a traditional landline-based system. Business communications are thus greatly improved and the high quality of interactions makes video conferencing in particular much more effective.

Email still has many benefits, including creating a record of exchanges with another individual or business, and it is particularly useful when you need to send attachments (although this can also be handled by cloud-based apps such as Dropbox). However, because you can’t gauge someone’s tone of voice from written communication, this tends to be less effective than VoIP and certainly less useful when it comes to customer care.

Of course, business people still use the telephone when they want to make a very personal connection, and it’s wise not to dismiss this as an effective method of communication. Social media also has a role to play in terms of interaction with customers, colleagues and other businesses. It is also acknowledged as a positive marketing tool, when used effectively.

Getting up to date

As technology continues to develop and more options become available, it is worth staying on top of what technologies such as VoIP have to offer. The fact that you can streamline office systems at the same time as reducing costs is, by itself, an extremely attractive alternative to outmoded communications options.