Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Business communication

Would not it be nice if people acknowledged receipt of emails, even if they do not yet have answers to them? Would not it be nicer if they actually read the text of work emails, without quickly hitting reply and answering an unrelated assumed question?  Sometimes I find myself repeating the same thing five different times and ways before the message is really received and understood by the other side.  Do you have the same experiences? Do you find yourself in unnecessary email chains that could have been avoided if the initial recipient had first carefully read the text of the email?  What are your solutions? I think sending short emails, with one question and a different subject line for each, make it harder for recipients to get confused.  At the very end, it seems to boil down to how responsible is the recipient, and how much s/he cares to take care of business.  I understand scientists and engineers not being the best communicators.  However, when someone's job is to provide customer service, especially for life changing matters,  I cannot grasp their non responsiveness.  Change your job for God's sake if you do not want to provide service to customers and answer their questions.