My Students’ Blog

The Art of Communication Via Text and Email

By Christopher Mora

Technology has been growing in popularity for over 50 years now.Text messages and email have blown up quickly and become some of the most popular forms of communication. With recent events, working from home catapulted in popularity, having tripled between 2019-2021. Learning how to effectively communicate on a professional level through text and email has never been more important.

Clear communication in the workplace is extremely important. Data has shown that a total 37 billion dollars are lost each year due to employee misunderstandings. These stats are even more concerning in the healthcare industry, where miscommunication can be fatal. Communication failures were linked to 1,744 deaths in five years.

Clear communication in the workplace is extremely important. Data has shown that a total 37 billion dollars are lost each year due to employee misunderstandings.

Provokemedia.com

Miscommunication is common over text. Studies show that only 7% of communication is determined by words, and the voice quality and nonverbal communication (hand motions, posture, facial expressions, etc.) make up the rest. That 7% is the only thing that’s used to convey things we communicate through text and email, so miscommunication is bound to happen. Here are some common challenges with communication and how to deal with them.

The challenges of text and email

1. Lack of emotion, tone, and context: Miscommunication happens when you don’t understand the sentiment behind something someone says. It’s even harder to understand the sentiment in a text where you lack context, tone of voice, and body language. For example, someone could be messaging you in a hurry, and you think they’re being rude because of it.

2. Can weaken and promote bad spelling and grammar: Shortened words, slang, no capitalization, no punctuation are things that are all significantly more prominent on the internet, and autocorrect is such a powerful tool everyone uses, but becoming reliant on it can lead to complacency.
3. Unorganized and wordy: nobody wants to read entire essays over text. That becomes even more true when you lack the context as to where the person may be or what they’re doing. They might need a quick response. Being long winded makes it more likely that you’ll go off track and start talking about something else. Next thing you know, you and the recipient of your messages could be talking about something on the complete opposite side of a subject.

4. Lack of formalities and manners: Unless you know a person well enough, it’s generally considered inappropriate to address them informally, especially in a work environment. Not being able to see someone, though, puts everyone on the same level and makes many forget that the person they’re talking to is a superior whom they don’t know well.

5. Technical difficulties: Majority of the time, tech problems are unpredictable, you never really know when they might happen, or what problem it will be. They aren’t very easy to fix either, and the result can be minor communication issues to an entire company-wide shut down. 

How to fix/minimize these problems

1. Choose the right medium: Try to avoid sending important or lengthy messages through text messages. SMS(texting) and MMS(sending images and files with text) are meant for short or urgent messages that need quicker responses. They’re less organized and have too much back and forth; an email keeps lengthy messages much better organized and recorded.

2. Proofread: Make sure you proofread your message before sending! Typos, apart from making messages more confusing and harder to read, also make you seem less professional and disorganized. Autocorrect isn’t perfect, and it will make mistakes or miss some, so make sure you’re sending the right message. Whether it’s a long-winded or short message, you should alway proofread it to avoid sending coworkers confusing information. While you’re proofreading, make sure that message is getting sent to the right recipient.

3. Be concise, clear, and specific: Avoid being long winded and try to get straight to the point. Stay organized; use the subject line on emails. Organize and send different, separate emails based on the subject, and organize those subjects by including bullets or separate paragraphs to separate your thoughts on each subject. This makes it significantly easier to go back on previous emails and gather information you may need to go back to.

4. Use formal greetings and be polite: Make sure you’re addressing others with Mr./Ms./Mrs./Dr. unless you know them personally and are on a first name basis with them. Soften your tone when instructing others, and make sure you acknowledge their contributions to an effort. A good and easy way to do this is to use what’s known as the “compliment sandwich.” This method is especially useful when giving constructive criticism. 

5. Reduce chances of technical errors: There isn’t much that can be done about tech issues; you can’t really prevent them, but you can reduce the chances of them happening by making sure your software stays up to date, and the tech stays clean.

Like all skills, practice makes perfect. As long as effort is being put into this, you’ll get better at it. Don’t feel discouraged when miscommunication happens, it’s always bound to happen. Communication is a two person effort, make sure you try doing your part.

For additional information: 9 tips for professional email communication by the University of Florida, How to Avoid the Communication Barriers of Chat and Text by Tim Eisenhauer, The 7 Things You Need to Know to Text With Good Etiquette by Jacqueline Whitmore, The 18 Unwritten Rules of Texting You Should Know by Sammy Nickalls, How to Avoid Future Tech Problems by MSP Blueshift