B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

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Online Communication 101

In the course of working with a fast growing business, you get exposed to many different people. Prospects, clients, employees, potential employees, vendors and consultants all bring different communication skills to the table. That’s not news of course, but it’s simply amazing to me the lack of effort some people put into communicating effectively.

Here are my top 5 online communication pet peeves:

  1. Emails asking for a call back and they don’t include a phone number in their signature, and many times, not a signature at all.
  2. Phone messages with a name and a number and no reason for calling.
  3. Phone messages and the phone number is read so fast, you’d think the person was in a contest for fast-phone-number-reading.
  4. Email responses that acknowledge a problem, but do not offer any solutions.
  5. IM exchanges that should really use email. Email exchanges that should really use a phone.

I’m sure I could spend some time thinking up more, but there are what come to mind on this great Friday afternoon.

About Lee Odden

@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of TopRank's B2B Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he's the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on B2B marketing topics including content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he's likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.

Comments

  1. Thomas McMahon says

    As for #3, I always leave my phone number twice as I absolutely hate it when I get a message that leaves the number so fast that I can’t get it written down.

  2. Josh says

    I would like to echo McMahon’s comment, the phone number twice for non-familiar vmails should be standard business etiquette. Listenening to vmails twice or three times is a waste of time.