Introduction
Communication is the exchange of information between two or more living creatures. Information can be exchanged or conveyed through the exchange of thoughts, information by speeches, written messages, visual, signals or behavior. Business communication is the contact between people or a group of people in an organization carrying out business activities. Business communication aims at promoting organization’s products or services, or passing information within, or from the company as an official statement. Business communication comprises topics like; customer relations, advertisement, employee-employer engagement, marketing, brand management, consumer behavior, and corporate communication, professional and technical communication. Employers look for top quality communication in order to effectively communicate with customers by asking the right question and understanding the customer better. This enables a business entity to recommend a given product or service to the customer according to the needs the customer desires to satisfy.
Visual and audio communication
Visual communication is a type of communication, which is aided by visuals. Information is passed out in a form that can looked upon, or read, thus making it vision reliant communication. A good visual communication is based on measuring the audience’s comprehension. Audio communication on the other hand is a way of passing information in a way that produces warning messages by voice alerts. It also comprises all the types of audio files, which can use automated systems to pass information through production of sound (Murphy, & Hildebrandt, 45).
Overall impression and vivid memories from the video
Message decoding by the recipient
Based on the video, the audience; in this case the message receiver in the video, performed poorly in decoding the message. The receiver did not show enough attention in the process of decoding the message. Lack of attention is the one of the most common barriers of communication (Murphy & Hildebrandt, 65). Another attribution of poor encoding in the video is because of unclear message. The transmission link was constantly being interrupted by some sharp noise making it hard for the recipient to clearly hear the audio message. Language interpretation and understanding was another barrier of communication that the recipient of the message encountered. The recipient was not well conversant with the English language, which made him misunderstand the word “sink” for “think”. In addition, the recipient of the message had poor listening skills, as shown in the process of receiving the call. For effective message encoding, the recipient must pay attention, hear the words clearly, understand the message so that that he/she can interpret and give out the correct feedback.
Business message from the video
The business message from the video is that, when making a business call; the call must be clear and must inform the recipient of the call who the caller is and the origin of the call (Bovee & Thill, 2012). Poor communication with the customer will lead to a business losing that customer to a competitor. For example, if the person making the distress call were a customer requiring urgent goods or service from a business firm, the firm would have lost the customer due to poor communication links and the poor communication skills of the recipient. In the other way round, if the distressed caller were a business owner trying to reach a customer, clarity of the message and poor communication channel would have hindered the delivery of the message to the customer. Bad communication link or noise is another barrier to effective communication.
Things to encourage for effective communication
In order to achieve effective communication, (based on the message recipient in the video) barriers to effective to communication should be identified first. First, message recipients must develop better listening skills. This will ensure that all the attention is given to the message being received with no mental distraction and consequently, this will lead to better message interpretation. The next action is to ensure that the communication channel is clear by eliminating the noise. This will ensure the clarity of the message to the recipient. In addition, proper communication is attributed to understanding the language used by the sender of the message; otherwise, the language barrier can be a very serious matter that would lead to poor customer communication (Bovee & Thill, 70). In this case, the person in charge of direct communication with clients should understand the national language used in the internal and external environment of the business. In the case of multinational businesses, multilingual persons should be put in that position. Assumptions should by far be avoided in order to make effective communication. Assumption or message, which is not clarified, may be fatal to a business, as wrong or incomplete messages might be given out to clients as feedback.
The AIDA model
In order to make the message in the video more understandable, AIDA model can be used to modify the video and make it interesting to the audience. AIDA is a copyright acronym which stands for; Attract/Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. AIDA model ensures that any form of writing can be as effective as desired to the reader (Kreps & Gary, 1996).
Creation of attention/attraction
In the competitive world of business, the video producer should be quick enough to attract the people attention. At the beginning of the video, the communication was not that clear and would make the person viewing it to lose interest even before it started. In order to make the video capture the attention of the audience, powerful words or a captivating picture that will catch the eye of the viewers and make them stop what they were doing should be used (Kreps & Gary, 1996). This form of visual communication ensures customers are attracted by the first impression.
Capturing the Audience Interest
This is a bit challenging than attracting attention. This can be achieved by assisting the audience to get the relevant message quickly without much straining or thinking. This can be done by simplifying the message of interest, for example, breaking it to simple, orderly parts, to make the points stand out (Kreps & Gary, 72). Instead of focusing on advertisements, customer’s interest could be raised by demonstrating the advantages and benefits of the product or service.
Desire
Desire and interest go hand in hand with each other. In the process of building the audience interest, the message should be modified in such a way that emphasizes on the actual benefit one will get from the offering the firm is trying to communicate to them. This can be achieved by appealing to the individual needs and wants.
Action
Finally, it is important to make it clear to the audience about what you want them to do rather than leaving them to figure out (Kreps & Gary, 23). Make the customers take action and purchase or go for the service, or refer them where they can get more information.
Concepts learned from the course that can be applied in future business communication
Strong business communication skills are essential to the success of the business regardless of the business mission, geographical location and size. These skills determine what to communicate, whom to communicate, how to communicate and at what level in the organization.
In addition, good communication skills in business help the organization to achieve its objectives by informing, persuading and developing good will in both the internal and external business environment.
Finally, good business communication skills enable businesses to survive in a dynamic global business environment, by adopting and continually changing their way of communication.
Conclusion
Communication skills in business have become a powerful tool that one should possess in order to accomplish one’s career, and speed up the rate of accomplishment. Any person with an ambition to achieving a good and rewarding career in management should be conversant with business essential skills and possess high levels of communication skills in the normal and circumstantial situations. Strong communication skills are a stepping-stone for managers and leaders who aspire to progress in their careers.
Works Cited
Herta A. Murphy & Herbert W Hildebrandt (1991).Effective Business Communications. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Inc.
Bovee, C., &Thill, J. V. (2012). Business communication today (11th Ed.). Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Kreps & Gary L. (1996). Organizational Communication: Theory & Practice. London, Longman.
