Communication is key. They all say (who ever "they" are) that if you want a marriage to work, communication is key. If you want to be successful at work, communication is key. It is true. It is 100% true. Absolutely, totally agree. Yep!
It seems communication is a sort of past-time. I won't bore you with the idea of how we are all losing personal communication skills by resorting to text messages, instead of phone calls, or emails as opposed to face-to-face encounters. Let's be honest, we are all busy and this is the day & age we live in. We NEED those handy-dandy communication tools to keep us moving. I hope you don't let it go unnoticed that it is because of these tools that we are communicating more. If it wasn't for facebook would I be able to communicate to so many people at the same time? Would I have been able to keep in touch with long lost friends or family? If it wasn't for twitter would you know what I have been up to today? Ok, so maybe you don't care, maybe I am over-sharing (more on this later) on facebook, maybe my boss shouldn't read this but that's completely not the point.
Communicating is key in most relationships, but it is even more important in business.
Planning our wedding has resulted in a lot of frustration because of lack of communication. I contacted a photographer through his website. He responded-- eventually. I wanted to discuss his services and what we would need and through emails we accomplished nothing, so we discussed meeting up... he never responded again. Needless to say, we will not be using him. He took his time responding to emails and when we attempted to handle business in person he couldn't be bothered to communicate. Ok, fine.
Of course, I am sure a few of you have heard me complain about the one & only rental company in NWA. I initially emailed them to set up a meeting. Met with the owner in person at one of his stores, eventually-- after he finally responded-- and then heard nothing. I was promised to hear a quote and when I finally did it was all wrong. I contacted him again, I waited & waited & waited to receive a response. I scheduled to meet with him in person (he showed up late), we again discussed everything all over again and I was still not happy.
The positive communicating...
I asked for recommendations for a Chicago photographer, for our engagement photos. I received about three recommendations, contacted all three and inevitably went with the one I felt understood what I needed. She was the first to respond. She "apologized" for the down time between booking our session and the next email (which was not necessary, because we did not have a lot to keep in touch about but an apology is always a good place to start), and I felt like she ACTUALLY cared. Now, as you all know I am beyond pleased with my photographer-- amazing! I highly recommend her. . The package she sent us went above & beyond with the lovely wrapping and the thank you note and she is simply amazing!!-- Her ability to communicate was just what I needed to trust we made the right decision.
After being officially annoyed with the linen rental company in NWA I decided to look online. I emailed "Cloth Connection" a simple inquiry. The what-do-I-need-to-do, what-can-you-do-for-me kind of email. She immediately responded in less than 24 hours with an if-I-can-help-in-any-way-let-me-know, thank-you-for-your-email, etc. When I emailed her a second time with a LONG email with information overload included she immediately responded (in less than 12 hours, as I sent the email at about 11pm) "thank you for your questions, I would be happy to look over all of this information and see how I can help, if you do not mind I can tackle this request more thoroughly next week-- after the holiday weekend, however, if you prefer I can give you a very basic overview before this weekend"... Whoa, what?! She actually responded so quickly? She said if I needed her to she would do every thing in her power to help me the day before she leaves on a holiday vacation? WOW! I am impressed that she even responded at all. Major bonus points for sure!
If I have said it once, I have said it a million times, it is the little things that matter most. The simple emails to say "I received your request, let me process it" or "thank you for meeting with me, I look forward to..." or even the "I am sorry"... it is so simple that most people over look how much it actually matters.
Business communicating is important, but Personal Relationships need it too...
Communicating in personal relationships, be it through facebook and twitter, can help keep people together. When you move away from your friends and family, like I have, you feel a lot of distance, but through social media you are able to stay up-to-date on day-to-day happenings that it makes the physical distance not seem so far. I have had a friend for over 25 years. We met in kindergarten and became bestfriends. I moved away in 6th grade, but we vowed to keep in touch. Over the years we exchanged letters, then eventually emails (yeah, when it was finally invented) and became facebook friends 20 years after our friendship began. Due to our willingness to make an effort to communicate, through all the available ways, we stayed in touch for 25years and we now live 45 minutes away from one another. I have seen her two times in the last three months and she was able to call me when she needed my help. Unfortunately, however, it can also result in your Maid of Honor "unfriending" you because you disagree with her status. Perhaps a face-to-face, or even over-the-phone conversation would have made her less defensive, maybe not. Our social media can be a blessing and a curse, but communicating with your friends and family helps keep you feeling close to one another, even through hundreds of miles of seperation.
"Over-communicating"... is that possible?
I mean, I realize that you shouldn't over-share, but are over-sharing and over-communicating two different things? I feel in business relationships you do not need to tell the client how aggravated you are at work (over-sharing) but you do need to let them know that you hear them, you want to help them, it may take time, but you will take care of what you can for them. Under-communicating (if that is how you want to say it) in business relationships will probably result in a pissed off client or you losing out on a client/return customer. They will also probably tell everyone they know about your lack of communication and you might lose out on future clients.
In personal relationships it is more difficult to decipher between over-communicating and over-sharing. I suppose it is it more "What they don't know won't hurt them" or "if I don't care if they find out and it does hurts them" thought. If you don't care if they eventually find out, then fine, don't say it-- chances are you were probably about to over-share, but if you do care, if it does hurt them... this would be a great moment to over-communicate!!
I suppose the point of this post is to say "It really does not matter how busy you are in your day, it is ALWAYS important to communicate with people". I suppose this is my rant on communicating. Who knew I was so passionate about communicating??....
HAPPY COMMUNICATING!!
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