Internal messaging – what’s important?

It’s an eye opener to get an insight into the number of internal messages customer facing employees are expected to take on board every day – as well as stay on top of giving the best service they can to our customers!

How do you ensure the most important messages get through to the front line? More importantly, what are the most important messages anyway?

The sender of the message will argue (‘till the cows come home) the message they’re sending is critical, it’s crucial…and if you listen to them for long enough you’ll be convinced!

I suggest asking a simple question find out how important a message is:

Will this message give the customer a better experience…right now?

If it does – clear the path and get it to the front line straight away.

If it doesn’t – it can wait until after the customer is happy.

I appreciate it’s a tough call but it’s gotta be a matter of customer priority – surely?

Filed under: internal communication, Customer experience, employee communication, internal communication, internal messages

Efficiency runs deep

The impact of the global economic situation dawned on me this week.  I’m having more conversations around creating experiences (live and online)  which focus on delivering useful and effective experiences for the audience/user. Audiences expect  communications to be real, down to earth and by no means opulent. I remember less than a year ago delivering events with 3D imagery, grand sets and non stop big experiences, one after another – those days have gone. I’m doing more for less and making what I’ve got, work harder – it’s quite simply, a turn of events! There’s something quite refreshing about cutting through the crap.

Filed under: Uncategorized, "communications channel", employee communication, events, experiences, internal communication

Intranets enable competitiveness

I’m a comms guy at heart and having the opportunity to broaden my horizon to include the intranet is a welcomed road to walk. I’ve been researching, listening, learning, meeting, discussing  and dreaming all things intranet for a while now, so I thought I’d share what I’ve discovered…

The purpose of an intranet is to enable employees to spend the least amount of time getting tasks done. This makes sense – if an intranet allows employees to be effective and efficient they can spend more time on the customer.

Enterprise 2.0 – this is very interesting! There’s a general perceived need around ‘social media’ in organisations. I say ‘perceived’ because a large amount of intranet users are not social media savvy. They’re not convinced of it or understand its benefits and why they should get involved. Assuming the technology is in place, the cultural change of convincing employees to experiment with new ways of working and then wholeheartedly adopt these new ways is a big area of focus. The shift is inevitable, exciting and it’s just a matter of time.

My conclusion (to date) is the intranet is both a tool and a communications channel that has come of age.

For an organisation to be competitive it needs to be agile, adaptive and focus on the customer. If those responsible for the intranet truly embrace the role it can play in enabling these behaviours, they will add a huge amount of value to the organisation.

You’ve got to just throw yourself in there or simply be left behind!

If you’ve got further insights, case studies, etc to share please send them across, ’cause I am a sponge!

Filed under: Uncategorized, "communications channel", "social media in organisations", internal communication, intranet