Messengers are extremely popular nowadays and they are becoming even more widespread in professional communication due to the popularity of remote working positions. This form of information exchange seems to be pretty convenient, however, there is a range of problems which might occur on the way. It is better to be aware of them do not rely on using these popular apps and programmes as a primary mean of communication in your company.
As an employer, you should take care of the flawless process of communication at your company, so this article will be useful for you for seeing the problem form another angle.
The loss of messages
As it has just been mentioned, messengers have a range of downsides because of which it is better to have several means of communication.
Even if everyone is using a chat in the most professional way possible, there are still many possible situations which can happen naturally. For example, communication through chats can lead to the loss of information. You can easily imagine how a message will travel down with new incoming texts and finally it will be impossible to find the things which were important for solving a particular problem. Sometimes people might even delete their messages so it will be impossible to find their previous texts.
Ambiguity with the legacy of communication
In fact, some messages sent through messengers can be pretty confusing. For example, a group of employees is working on a project and they are constantly exchanging their ideas with their client. The client has some preferences for the project and they are being discussed through a messenger. It might all be obvious, although there is one possible question regarding such a form of exchange of information. When can the decisions regarding the project be considered final and official?
For the purpose of making some information official, it is highly recommended to use emails. It is crucial to remember about the fact any information shared through messengers is still not regarded as official by international appointments and regulations. This means if you are working with remote employees living abroad or with foreign clients, any information shared with them through messengers is not final and official. In case of any conflicts, only the information exchanged on paper documents and through the means of email communication will be regarded as official.
By the way, do not forget a simple opportunity of being excluded form a chat. Even an entire messenger might be blocked the next day after making a serious decision and such situations have already happened. As you can see, messengers are certainly not perfect for such cases.
The involvement of third parties into discussions
There is also another possible problem such as lack of privacy since groups chats can also include people whose competency is not covering the subject of a discussion. In such a case, the communication will be even more complex. It might happen that these people will learn the information which they were not supposed to know or they might feel included into a discussion and start behaving appropriately making the process of decision making overcomplicated.
Not feeling free about asking questions
If you are an employer, you can also come across such a popular problem regarding the usage of messengers for professional communication as the unwillingness of your employees to ask questions. As you can imagine, speaking to you or to other workers in the real time or even through a phone call makes people more comfortable of repeating questions in case of not understanding something. Yet, when a person repeats a question several times, he or she might be afraid to appear as unprofessional to others. Needless to say, this can make such a person refrain from asking questions.
You can easily guess what will happen if employees do not feel free of clarifying the issues they have not understood. Certainly, this can lead to various mistakes which might have been avoided with better communication.