3 Reasons Social Media Trumps Email for Business Communication

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The average office worker checks their email every two minutes and spends roughly a third of their working day checking and responding to emails. What’s more, it takes employees around 16 minutes to refocus on their tasks after handling email. Surely there are more efficient ways of doing business?

We’re obsessed with email. We use it to share documents, invite colleagues to meetings, ask questions, send answers, and we love to cc anyone vaguely connected to the project, expecting them to scroll through the entire email thread. The result is roughly 100 billion business emails sent every day when only a quarter of these are ‘essential’ for work.

The problem has only been exacerbated by smartphones as our emails now follow us home. In 2012, research by Good Technology found that 38% of employees routinely check work email at dinner, 50% whilst in bed, and 69% check their email before going to bed. I imagine these figures will be even higher by now.

The consequence of all of this is an unproductive and unhappy workforce.

The alternative is switching to collaboration software, or Enterprise Social Technology, which is where the future of internal business communications resides. Here are just a few reasons why:

  1. Knowledge sharing

This is one of the most common reasons businesses invest in social collaboration. Within any large business there will be vast amounts of knowledge and, without social collaboration, very little way to access it.

When searching for someone with knowledge on a specific issue, email users are restricted to their known contacts. Those contacts can then pass the email on and the process continues until the relevant person is located. It inevitably takes time and distracts numerous others in the process.

With collaboration software, employees can search profiles for keywords. You can find the right person instantly and don’t need to disturb other colleagues in the process.

  1. Document sharing

Using email to share documents is something of a nightmare. You email a document to a team, they all make their revisions and you’re returned a dozen separate files… then you get ready for round two. It’s near impossible to keep up with the revisions and no one knows where the most up-to-date document is.

Collaboration software will let employees upload a file and allow access to the relevant team members, who will be able to make edits simultaneously from within the platform itself. Software will also track these changes so it’s possible to see exactly who has done what and when.

  1. Working remotely

Social collaboration is making flexible working a reality, with staff able to work remotely whilst still able to communicate and coordinate as part of an effective team. This means businesses are able to employ the very best staff regardless of their location. After all, they could be anywhere in the world and it’s not likely that they’re all going to be congregated within 20 miles of your office.

The results

The results for businesses that have embraced collaborative software have been extremely positive. Research by the Aberdeen Group shows us that:

  • 71% have seen higher operational efficiency
  • 51% have seen greater on-time project delivery
  • 30% have higher customer retention
  • 28% have greater success in accessing business information within the required timeframe
Author: Jonty Pearce

Published On: 16th Sep 2014 - Last modified: 1st Feb 2017
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