Business Communications: Email, Text or Phone Call?
January 19, 2011
From texting to video to social networking and reading books, mobile phones are taking an ever-expanding role in our daily lives. And young people around the globe are more immersed in mobile technology than ever.
What do baby boomers prefer when it comes to business communications?
The Nielsen Company says that adults in the 45 to 54 age group in general made fewer mobile phone calls in 2010 than in 2009. The study was conducted for The Wall Street Journal. Study subjects on average made 188 mobile phone calls a month. At the same time, people from ages 45 to 54 sent and received 323 texts a month in the second quarter of 2010, up 75% from a year ago, Nielsen says.
Text messages take up less time than phone calls, so is this good news?
On the flip side, a text’s content is so condensed that it routinely fails, even more than email, to give enough information. The receiver has no idea of the sender’s tone and affect. In addition, the text abbreviations can be easily misunderstood by the person receiving the message. Texting’s rise over conversation is changing the way we interact, social scientists and researchers say. We default to text to relay difficult information. So should we assume mobile phone users needed to convey more difficult information in 2010 than in 2009 or are our ways of interacting changing across the board?
Research shows that businesses have overwhelmingly adopted email as a preferred form of daily communication. Email, even short messages are preferable to texting for communicating concepts. Texting is useful for making connections such as checking imminent meeting times or places, for example.
Texting should never replace email or the phone for important communications. When we default to texting for a business message, there is a danger that the recipient will not understand, especially if a wrong key is thumbed.
Texters often say they don’t want to engage in small talk, but at the same time, a moment or two of small talk can improve a relationship with the other party. Turns out actual dealmakers still spend much of the day on the phone. In addition, The Economist states that “reports of the death of the phone call are greatly exaggerated”.
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