How to improve written communication skills in the workplace is a question that comes up and is definitely a skill worth learning. It’s especially important in a world full of emails, Slack messages and other written communication.
I’m glad that United Way has added that feature and I would say that consumers as a whole expect to be able to chat with companies and organizations that way. But that means employees communicating that way need to have the right skills.
What are good written communication skills in the workplace?
Good written communication skills hit the right level:
- clarity
- tone
- understand that all that needs to come through in the written word.
The person we talk to can’t see your body language or hear your voice’s inflection and tone. So all that somehow has to come through via the written word.
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Why is some written communication so bad?
Some reasons that come to mind are that the writer doesn’t:
- understand how it sounds
- care how it sounds
- get the proper coaching
- listen to feedback
- speak the language natively and/or does not understand the subtleties
Sometimes, whoever is communicating in writing has the goal of getting their thoughts out instead of influencing or communicating well with the recipient.
Think of when people rant online. Is their point really to share something valuable? Or are they just venting?
When talking to customers online, is your goal to win the argument and be right or to try to understand and be helpful?
Sometimes, these less-than-useful goals aren’t even deliberate. Instead, people end up in them because they get caught up in the moment.
Who should care about written communication?
This article was prompted by some customer service chats I had. Chatbot customer support is becoming more and more of a thing. And waiting for a chatbot customer support agent to get back to me is much less annoying than being on hold on the phone with some crappy hold music.
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In reality, anyone who communicates with anyone else through the written word should work on their communication skills in that channel.
How to improve written communications?
Years ago, at times, I would run important emails by somebody else for a second set of eyes. That’s still a good idea, though, sometimes not feasible.
Also, keep in mind that you might have to think about what somebody’s feedback is saying. For example, somebody once told me that an email was straightforward. Okay. Noted. But what was the point of the email? Was it supposed to be direct and to the point? Or was it supposed to do something else?
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Goal
So any communication depends on the goal of that communication. For example, what’s the goal for the rep when a rep talks with a customer through a chatbot? Several come to mind:
- To be as helpful and empathetic as possible. ✅
- Explain the rules – no matter what! 🛑
- Be right and make sure the customer knows.🛑
- Get conversations done quickly.🛑
- Upsell.🤷♂️
The customer certainly isn’t always right, but that doesn’t mean we can’t show empathy, use non-aggressive language and be human. The goal should be to be helpful, understanding and have a professional tone.
Awareness
Many things start with awareness. For example, I probably won’t focus on losing weight until I’m aware that I need to be shedding some pounds. The same is valid here.
- Are we aware of how our brand is perceived?
- Do we know how our reps talk with customers?
- Did we provide them with the proper training?
- Do they know how to catch themselves going into a negative-responses rabbit hole?
- Did we hire the right people that can keep the right tone and helpfulness – even in stressful situations?
Implementation
Then indeed, we need to work on the implementation. That can include the proper ongoing training, monitoring and addressing communications, and finding other ways to communicate well through the written word.
One way to do that is to get instant feedback through technology solutions. I use Grammarly to get an instant check on how people may read my content.
For example, this article as I’m writing is currently showing these tones:
- Confident
- Disapproving
- Sad
It’s close to how I’m feeling. I’m confident that I have some tips that are worth sharing. I do indeed disapprove of rude and unempathetic written communication with customers. I’m not sure that I’m sad, though.
Either way, this current check of the tone that I’m using gives me an instant feedback loop of how my content is coming across. Customer service reps can do the same. Don’t want to sound too direct or disapproving, check your text’s tone and update the content before sending it.
As I kept writing and updating, I was able to get the tone to be formal, gloomy, and confident. Gloomy is an improvement, in my opinion.
But, I could probably still get the content friendlier. So I kept working on my tone, the words I picked and checking in on the detected tones. Finally, I ended up with friendly, confident, and optimistic tones.
There are also specific terminologies that are overly aggressive, to begin with, like:
- As I’ve previously mentioned several times…
- As you should be aware of…
- Per my previous email…
- I don’t care…
At the end of the day, working on written communication skills in the workplace is important and can help us achieve more and build better connections.
