What is internal communication?

Sometimes it’s best to start with the basics, at least to set the stage for the basis of the conversation.  Internal communications are the communications that you use to keep your team and your business on the same page.

This includes the processes within your organizations that are verbalized, written, printed, or digitally shared.  It also includes the data management tools that your team uses to communicate your customer information as well as for document management solutions and data storage.

 

Improve Communications, Improve Your Bottom Line | 4 Communications Tools You Should be Using

Why are internal communications important for success?

Internal communications are essential for almost every business larger than 2 individuals.  It’s difficult to communicate and carry a mission statement, values, or even processes without communications.  Just imagine how hard it would be to manage clients without a system to hold their information.  In some cases, it’s a bit terrifying to consider things like data security without a data management tool.  Taking the security and compliance concerns out for a moment let’s talk about managing the basics.

How to improve internal communication?

 I guess I should ask first, what are you currently using for internal communications?  Are you verbally communicating the important details of business. 

This could be a problem; I find that the busier I get the fewer details I remember. 

Side note: I like to write everything down and absolutely appreciate anyone who recaps meetings in emails and texts.  I was recently gifted a reMarkable from our company owner.  Having a digital notebook that I can upload, email and OCR my notes with has literally changed my life.  If you wear one than more hat in your organization, or you know someone who does, be kind and obtain one of these.

How are you Communicating your Business Operations Focus?

I’ve been in a few organizations where the mission, the values, and the goals of the company were rarely communicated.  Maybe there was the onboarding conversation…but after that, nearly nada.  It might be time to reconsider how you reinforce those messages.

Consider onboarding manuals in binders, or posters throughout your office communicating both your vision and your values. Incorporating smart boards or TVs throughout to show updated team information can bring out the competitive edge in your team too, trust me…you want that.  Gamifying the sales experience can be a huge motivator.

 

Internal communications tools

 That said, we’ll start with the CRM.  Is your CRM (customer relationship management) tool.  Without making the sale for them, we use Salesforce to communicate up, down, through administration, and post-sale.  With total adoption of the tool, we can manage the sale of course but more importantly manage the customer to total satisfaction and raving fan status. 

The point here being, if you can convince your entire team to use your CRM well, incorporating integrations from the external tools that manage your offerings you can see the business as it it, scale, and dominate the market.

Collaboration Tools

But let’s say that you need more than a CRM, because honestly almost everyone does. 

Phone systems

We all know what the last few years have been like.  The question is, did you love or hate the flexibility of your phones when you realized most everyone was remote?  Even putting the shutdown aside, more and more teams are working remote, offering flex plans, or multitasking across devices.  Is your business flexible enough to keep up?

Are you still paying for landlines? Did you know that you could be saving about $40 per line by moving your phones to the cloud?  Cloud based phone systems (VoIP) will change your life and decrease your bottom line.

Video Communications

We are now all acquainted with Zoom, which can serve a purpose externally, but what about internal video? Sometimes the best way to show a team member what you need on a project is best done on video.  Better yet, bringing satellite branches into meetings can make collaboration better and buying easier.  With some of your systems you may already have video options, they exist in Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, or even via your company smartboard technology.

Team Messaging

Do you really need to travel to the other side of the office, with at least 10 separate opportunities for distraction?  If you’re at all like me, then that means you’re about 50% more likely to completely forget why you started across the office in the first place.  Team messaging is the answer.  Align your team (again on Microsoft Teams), Slack, Chatter in Salesforce and reduce time wasted searching dramatically.

If you choose an instant messaging that is managed through the office systems, then you’re also choosing an opportunity to capture the internal conversations about customers and business operations for use later.  That information can be very valuable when researching when an issue might have gone offtrack.

Whether you’re thinking about upgrading your tools or streamlining operations for scaling goals, start by getting your internal communications on track for your entire team.