Remember when working life was simple? All you had to check was your incoming mail (as in post office) and maybe a handful of handwritten phone messages on little pink sheets – remember those? Now you’ve got to respond to your e-mail, your voice mail, your shared electronic schedule with integrated to-do list, and so on and so on.

Electronic communication isn’t always a nightmare, but is often frustrating. A few months ago, I wanted to get in touch with a colleague in another city. I tried calling several times, and got voice mail. His greeting never changed, and I thought maybe he was away on business or on vacation.

E-mails didn’t work either. Finally, I called one early morning and he picked up. “I’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of weeks,” I said, barely able to hide my frustration. “I know,” he said sheepishly, “and I apologize. I get about a hundred e-mail and voice mail messages every day, and I can’t get to them all. I wouldn’t have time to do anything else!”

Wow. What can you say to that? When it comes to communication, technology has given us a blessing and a curse. ‘Instant’ electronic communications can improve our productivity, but only to the point where we become swamped and unable to respond. That’s the communication gap – that widening period of time between the electronic message and our ability to respond.

This incident made me really think. Do we have to be frustrated with communicating these days, or could we do it better? And how do we manage our ‘personal brand’ in an age of electronic communications?

THE ANATOMY OF A COMMUNICATION

In the 1990s the service industry developed a quality theory known as ‘moments of truth’. It says that every contact with a customer, from the first telephone inquiry to an estimate to the service experience and even the invoice afterwards, was a ‘moment of truth’ that could be handled well, or handled poorly. The outcomes determined whether a company would ultimately keep or lose that customer.

This interesting concept can be extended to include colleagues as well as customers. You may not risk ‘losing’ a colleague or an associate as you could a customer, but you can certainly lose their attention and your credibility through careless communication. Are we communicating within our own comfort zone, without thinking about the preferences of the other person? Are we communicating in ways that damage our personal images and reputations?

Which brings me back to my experience with my colleague. What could I have done?

Well, I could have done sooner what I ultimately did – pick a strategic time of day to call. Or I could have been very specific in my e-mail and voice mail messages, making a response more obvious and easy. I could have ‘zeroed out’ of voice mail and spoken with an administrative assistant to book a telephone appointment.

Now that I know his predicament, I could simply ask him, “What’s the best way to get hold of you? What do you like best?”

If I do any or all of these things, I gain two benefits. First, I get a faster response. Second, I make a favorable impression that will probably be reciprocated.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.