Corporate Eye

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Archives for March 2016

What’s in Your Tone? How to Communicate Effectively

I invited Stuart Hearn, who has worked in HR for over 20 years, to write a post for us about how internal communication can affect external communication.

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What’s in Your Tone? How to Communicate Effectively

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

Getting your point across while simultaneously acknowledging the point of the person you’re talking to isn’t always easy — particularly if the other person is an employee receiving feedback, or a customer giving feedback.

Internal and external communication are both extremely important to a company’s success. External communication is often prioritised because it’s focused on the customer, but internal communication could be impacting your company’s external communication.

External Communication

Brand voice is something that companies spend a lot of time considering — how does their brand sound? Is their brand voice connecting with their customers? Is their brand voice consistent across their website, social media, customers services and sales team?

A brand voice should be singular and consistent. Brand voice can have different tones, just as an individual’s own voice can. Tone should adjust to empathise with the customer being communicated to.

Your tone online and in marketing materials should reflect your style of business. Finance based companies tend to use jargon to create demonstrate authority and come across as well informed. Contrastingly, a children’s party business would be friendlier and bouncier in tone and use more simple sentences.

In scenarios involving customers, the tone needs to be able to adjust. Is there a disgruntled and frustrated customer on the end of the phone? The tone of voice needs to be empathetic and diligent. How about a client who is worried, teetering dangerously close to the edge of panic? A reassuring and informative tone of voice would be needed.

Getting the tone of voice pitch perfect is an integral part of effective communication. Without it, a dialogue can become frustrating or simply hard work when the two or more people involved aren’t on the same page. As a business, it’s down to them to get the tone of voice right and make sure they’re making the utmost effort to be on the customer’s page.

This is easier said than done, and actually the tone of internal communications may play a larger role in external communications than businesses realise.

Internal Communication

A company’s internal communication impacts external communication. Employees who feel valued and satisfied in the workplace through clear and motivational communication with their managers and co-workers will make customers feel valued and satisfied.

The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences (PDF) states: “Internal communication activities focus on better informing and engaging an organisation’s workforce. The way in which such news and information is received, discussed and acted upon by employees will ultimately have a positive or negative influence on business performance.”

Think about the tone of voice in internal communication. An employee spoken to tersely by a manager may be quick to turnaround and converse in the same manner with a customer, whereas a manager with a lot of energy in their voice can instil that same passion in employees. As Sue Shellenbarger writes: “An energetic voice comes across to listeners as authentic, inspiring trust.”

The way companies communicate internally is changing for the better. The influence of the digital world and social media has affected the way we communicate in the workplace. We expect instant, real-time communication and the introduction of innovative performance management software reflects that.

Increasingly companies are introducing feedback apps that can be accessed by any employee, from any device and any time they choose. These apps allow teams to collaborate constantly, enable employees to give and receive real-time feedback and give managers directions on how to ensure that the tone of feedback is always constructive.

When the right tone is used, internal communication can motivate employees and, in turn, improve external communication and customer satisfaction.

Thanks Stuart!

Stuart Hearn is an HR Director and entrepreneur specialising in performance management software. Stuart has worked in the HR sector for over 20 years and previously cofounded PlusHR, a leading UK HR consultancy organisation, and Onetouchteam, a cloud-based HR management tool. Connect with Stuart on LinkedIn.

Digital Stories: Unlocking Online Video’s Narrative Power

I invited Joseph O’Brien—a writer with an interest in media and technology—to write a post for us about online video and storytelling.

video-storytellingOnce upon a time…more like Once upon a click: video narratives are increasingly the medium in which people choose to tell their brand stories. The power of narrative storytelling transcends different media, but storytelling and video particularly thrive in the digital marketplace. The power of online video as endlessly interactive and shareable content is a no-brainer. Video storytelling is here to stay and here’s why…

Why is telling stories so effective?

Brand analysts have been telling us for years that to engage with our audiences we need to tell stories. Storytelling knows no bounds and transcends industries, from Fortune 500 high-tech companies to pet stores: everyone is doing it. But what makes storytelling such an effective way for brands to interact with consumers? Here’s the lowdown on telling stories:

  • Basic instincts: Stories take us back to our primeval roots, to the origins of speech, language and culture. In earliest human societies, bards and storytellers were responsible for weaving everything into comprehensible language. Stories were used to explain everything from the beginning of the Universe to childbirth and the four seasons. Storytelling is hardwired into us.
  • Supremely sharable: The story format, with its beginning, middle and end is a format that works. People understand it, they inherently ‘get’ it, so they are happier to share it with friends and family. Which is great news for brands. After all, why spend hours crafting something, only to let it sit in a hidden corner of the internet?
  • Emotionally compelling: A story format often makes dull things like data and facts more emotionally compelling. For example, human interest stories are often used to raise awareness and build up a research and development community for a whole range of rare illnesses and conditions. Emotions are a powerful tool, and when there is solid data behind, the possibilities are limitless. Just check out Skype’s emotional video on two girls born with the same congenital condition. Here a branded online video hits all the emotional buttons, as well as educating viewers on a rare congenital condition.

Why is video the perfect medium for storytelling?

Video storytelling success is due to its immediacy, accessibility and endless flexibility. Here are some key reasons why video storytelling works:

  • Emotive Medium: Its ability to intimately explore human and animal faces, sounds, and fully immerse the viewer in a specific surrounding, makes video the perfect vehicle for carrying an emotional message. Behavioural psychologist Susan Weinschenk has outlined the main reasons why people emotionally respond to video content:
    1. Human Face – If/when presented by a human face in a video, information becomes more credible.
    2. Human Voice – Hearing a human voice in a video instantly increases the meaningfulness of the content.
    3. Body Language – We are sophisticated interpreters of body language; the right body language helps us create a relationship with the video.
    4. Movement – By engaging our eyes and minds, movement helps to keep our interest levels high.
  • Clarity and Directness: It’s not true to say that spoken word is always more simple than text (just ask the Ancient Greek rhetoricians), but there is a level of clarity and directness that comes with spoken language that makes it attractive. As a medium that doesn’t heavily rely on text, video is supremely direct and clear.
  • Personal and Accessible: Online video is reaching more people than ever before; in the UK it reaches up to 80% of the population, and it’s almost 75% in the US. Online video has also been adopted by a lot of niche community groups, as well as being part of millenials’ everyday life. Online video is where people go to tell their stories; it’s also a genuine conversation starter- creating new stories all the time.
  • Supports Many Characters: Dialogue in written text can be tricky- something even accomplished writers struggle with. In video switching to a new speaker or topic is easier as visuals guide the message. This means a video story can be comprehensive and complex, without being too confusing or the messaging becoming too diffuse.

Video technology and storytelling

One way in which video has the edge over other traditional mediums is its immersive quality. Video’s ability to overlay music, sound, text and integrated motion graphics means that one video can tell many stories at once, weaving different narratives. Animation is also a great way to tell stories that can move between different audiences and industries easily.
Remember, even a very simple story needs a whole raft of technological expertise before it becomes a compelling online video.

Other stories online video can tell

Online hair tutorials, grassroots stop-motion clips, vlogs, gig videos – the ways in which online video can help marketers, people and communities tell stories are endless. Stories aren’t always big and flashy; they can also be fleeting moments of everyday narrative you just have to capture.

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joseph-obrienHi, I’m Joseph O’Brien, and as a writer the culture of storytelling and its digital afterlives fascinate me.

Thank you to Aspect Film & Video for their insights into video storytelling techniques.

Find out more about me and my freelance writing on my blog.

New website? What have you missed?

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So you’ve developed a shiny new website to perform a particular function for your customers. It replaces a working, but rather visually dated, site.

What are the most important things to do before you put it live?

Well, testing it, for one thing. Ensuring that you have a rollback option, so that you can put the previous version back up if you need to, is also important. And checking that all your surrounding processes still work OK is a third.

I recently had cause to log in to a particular site (let’s call this X), which is owned by a large company (let’s call them A). I noticed that the design of the site had changed since I’d last logged in 10 days ago – all the content had been removed from the home page, leaving only two options: log in, or create a new account. No other links or text on the page at all…

So I tried – and failed – to log in. I tried again. I tried resetting the password, several times. Still nothing worked.

So I called company A, whose customer service team put me through to the department responsible for X. Sadly, the call went to an answerphone message, which said: check the FAQ on site X [remember that all content on X is now behind the login page, which doesn’t work] or call company A.

Since there are no contact details or any other information available on site X, I have no option but to keep trying to call company A.

Having looped through this several times in the last few days, one of the customer service team at company A managed to get through to the X department, who said something like: “oh yes, there’s a problem with site X, we’re working on a fix and it should be back up in 4 days”. That is, 4 days from today, not from the day when the problem was first observed – which, if I were the first person to spot it, was 4 days ago.

That’s at least 8 days that website X is non-functional.

Lessons to be learned?

  • Test a new website properly. Being able to log in is pretty fundamental, particularly if there’s nothing else available
  • Ideally, be able to restore the old version if the new version fails in the first few days
  • Check that all other offline procedures and instructions fit in with the new site (change management 101). Don’t forget to replace that answerphone message…

And, if possible, please provide contact details.