Business communication can take too much time and efforts, especially if you or your clients choose not right tools to do it. One phone call or IM make you lose concentration on work issues for an hour or so. What are the advantages of email over phone, fax, and modern communication ways such as Skype, IM and social networks? Why email is still preferred by many people as most efficient communication tool? I am going to share my thoughts in this post.

Phone, Skype and VoIP

The real time communication by phone or Skype works best if you ready to answer questions immediately. If I need to look through some documents, make a research or calculations I’m feeling not so comfortable. That’s terrible if I’m getting a call on my way, talking to other person and can’t even write down notes and questions.

Sometimes people even don’t know why they are calling. They find a note in a notebook, make a call and only after that trying hard to remember what they wanted to talk about. So I need to remind my clients why he or she is calling me. And I’m feeling very confused when I need to write down addresses of internal site pages 100 characters’ length relying on spelling talent of other person.

Phone calls don’t leave anything afterwards: no logs, no summary of conversations to look through after and in worse cases to have proof of decisions/mistakes made. All you can use is the number, time of the call and its duration.

How phone users justify themselves

I need to solve a problem in a real time
Well, it still is faster if you send me email. If you can write email and there’s no emergency, write email. You don’t want to waste my time and yours, do you?

Sometimes email gets lost and I don’t know if you replied to me
It could be a lame excuse. If someone would like something to get lost it will. Use your mobile phone to check email, get notifications by SMS if your phone can’t check email.

I don’t have time to write you email (I’m too lazy)
Time spend to type email would help you to express your thoughts more precisely. You don’t need to write novels by emails.

Instant Messengers and Social networks

People are using dozens of different IM messengers, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk. Not every IM saves history of your conversations (logs) on server. As a rule it is a headache to search through IM messages. If you forget to turn off IM and it could turn out as a disaster. Someone would ask urgent questions but get no feedback. You could realize it only an hour later.

Some clients try to use Facebook private message or Twitter DM as a way of business communication. Isn’t it easier to send an email?

Fax

Fax is still preferred way of ‘official’ communication by some clients. I don’t have fax and don’t use it. Why to not scan a document and send it by email?

How to manage communication in your way

Let’s your clients leave voicemail messages every time you can’t answer phone. In your voicemail greeting specify that you prefer email for business communication. It’s better to set the rules from the start: you’re using email as the primary way of communication and private meetings to discuss important issues.