Chapter 8 Sharing Informative and Positive Messages with Appropriate

Technology

Informative and Positive Messages

Informative: expect receiver’s basic reaction will be neutral
Positive: expect receiver’s reaction will be positive
Don’t require receiver to do anything

The purposes of informative and positive messages

Primary purposes:
• Give information or good news to the receivers
• Have receiver view information positively
Secondary purposes:
• Build good image of sender
• Build good image of sender’s organization
• Build good relationship between sender and receiver
• Deemphasize any negative elements
• Eliminate future messages on same subject

Reasons to Use Technology

 Meet audience expectations
 Reach a wider audience
 Shorten response time
 Make a broader impact

Common Technological Platforms

Technology can enhance workers’ experiences, improve clients’ impressions of the
company, and improve the bottom line
Phone calls
- Provide clarity or clarify misunderstanding
- Address urgent needs (immediately)
- Make decisions in the moment
- Convey appropriate tone
- Save multiple phone calls or e-mails
- Avoid leaving a paper trail

Websites
A company should have information online such as:
 - Business hours
- Services offered
- Contact information
(Without a website, a company appears out-of-touch, incompetent, or not audience-
focused)

Email
- Accomplish routine, noncontroversial business activities
- Save time—people can look through 60 to 100 emails in an hour
- Save money—one email can go to many people, including global teams
- Allow readers to deal with messages at their convenience
- Communicate accurately
- Provide readers with details for reference (meetings)
- Create a paper trail

Text messages
- Allow for quick communication that falls between the immediacy of a phone call and
that of an email
- Be less intrusive (than visit or phone call)
- Ask questions on tasks that fellow colleagues are working on
- Leave a communication trail
- An effective choice for communication about a single point
- Do not use texts for larger tasks, more complex questions or instructions, or
messages connected with conflict

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn)

Connect with many users quickly
Connect inexpensively
Post profiles, updates, blogs, useful links

- FB: a social networking tool that can be used as a communication channel with
customers and employees
- Tweet: a microblog that can be used to create a following, share information, create
branding, and eavesdrop on what people say about competitors
- Ins: a visuals-based platform that can be used to create excitement about a
company’s products or services
- Link: a social networking tool for professionals to connect to colleagues and industry
members

*Wiki (put in problem and other will put solution)

Bookmark and summarize web pages
Upload drafts of working documents
Create new entries about workplace practices

*Letter/Memos
Use letter to send messages to people outside your organization
Use memos to send messages to people within your organization

Applications
- Send and receive email
- Access websites
 - Track a shipped order
- Check inventory
- Complete a time sheet
- Apps engage customers and also allow employees to be connected to their work
24/7

Video
- Due to rising travel costs, alternatives to traditional face-to-face meetings
Meetings can occur:
- Across different time zones
- Between different nations instantaneously
- Without delays or postponements due to late flights or weather problems

Building Goodwill Using Technology

should focus on the benefit to audience, strengthens a positive connection between audience and
sender, but not all messages need to provide benefits

Use a Story – gain attention, place information in context, connect with emotions
Use Humor – you know your audience well, it is appropriate for the situation
Use Informational Hooks
- Encourages readers to open the email, read the post, or watch the video because
they value the content
- The benefit could be monetary (a discount coupon) or content (a seasonal recipe)
- Providing information perceived as valuable projects an image of your company as
generous, thoughtful, and community-minded
Connect with Your Audience
a) Respond to complaints:
- Complaining customers expect organizations to show they are listening and want to
resolve the problem
- Mention rectification n first sentence
- Don’t talk about decision making process
- Don’t say anything that sounds grudging
- Give reasons for mistake only if it reflects responsibly on the company

b) Express gratitude:
- Make customers feel appreciated
- Praising or congratulating people can cement good feelings and enhance visibility

Avoid Information Overload

a) Protect your audience’s time:
- Follow the best practices for each type of communication you use
- At every step, ask yourself: Is this communication necessary? Is it efficient? Is it
clear? Have I considered my audience’s needs? Have I done everything I can to
save them time?
 b) Manage the information you convey:
- Avoid overestimating audience knowledge, but provide all information they need
- Develop a visual cue for new information in regular updates
- Use numbers to answer multiple questions
- Use overviews, headings, and bullets in long emails so readers can find the
information they need
- Use checklists for processes involving multiple steps or complicated knowledge

Using Face-to-Face Communication

Use face-to-face contact to:
• Visit a colleague
• Build a business relationship
• Save multiple calls or e-mails
• Engage in dialogue or negotiation
• Acquire something immediately
• Avoid leaving a paper trail
• Increase visual and aural cues

Tips for Effective Face-to-Face Contact

Ensure the timing is convenient for the recipient
If you are discussing something complex, have appropriate documents in hand
Don’t take over the other person’s space; look for “time to go” signs
Limit small talk, especially when they are busy

Platform-Specific Best Practices

Meet audience expectations for basic level of using technology
Consider audience and purpose when using informal language acronyms
Be mindful that electronic messages can be saved, forwarded, and printed

Phone Calls
Phone calls are useful when:
• Tone of voice is important
• A real-time connection saves multiple phone calls or emails (e.g., setting a meeting
time)
• You need something immediately
• You do not want to leave a paper trail (although phone records can be obtained)
Tips for Effective Phone Calls
Ensure the timing is convenient for the recipient
Limit phone calls to business hours
Promptly return calls
Speak clearly
Use an informational hook
Keep the call short and cordial
Repeat your phone number at the end of the call
Focus on the call; do not do other work

Phone Call Pet Peeves

Callback numbers that are mumbled or given too quickly.
Messages longer than 30 seconds.
Messages that require serious note taking (when an email would have been better).
Too much or too little information.
Demands to return the call without saying why.
Messages expecting an immediate response.
Angry messages.

Best Practices for Email

For effective messages that save your audience time:
• Use To/CC/BCC lines to your advantage
• Use appropriate salutations
• Remember that emails are public documents and may be widely forwarded
• Be aware that your email may not be read

Save your audience time:

- Put the most important information in the first sentence
- If it is more than one screen long, use an overview, headings, and enumeration to draw
readers to successive screens
- Limit your email to one topic; delete off-topic material
- When sending attachments, put the most vital information in the email too
Email Pet Peeves
 Missing or vague subject lines.
 Copying everyone (“Reply to all”), rather than just the people that might find the information
useful/interesting.
 Too much information/too little information.
 Too many instant messaging acronyms.
 Lack of capitalization and punctuation.
 Long messages without headings or bullets.
 Delayed response emails that don’t include the original message. Sometimes readers have
no idea what the emails are about.
 Writers who send a general request to multiple people, creating confusion about who is
responsible for handling the request.
 People who expect an immediate answer (within one to three hours) and do not select a more
rapid means of communication, such as a phone call.
 People who never respond to queries.
 People who don’t read their email carefully enough to absorb a simple message.
 People who send too many unimportant emails.
 Superfluous images and attachments.
 Overuse of high-priority markers or subject line words such as URGENT or READ NOW
 Flaming (angry messages, frequently with extreme language).

Best Practices for Facebook

When creating a business Facebook page, include:
• Key information such as business hours
• Link to an external company website
• Contact information such as email address and phone number
• Cover and profile photos that are easily rendered on multiple platforms, such as
laptops and mobile phones
Use the page to interact with customers in a way that:
• Builds goodwill
• Generates meaningful interest in your company
If users post complaints to your page, respond:
• Promptly
• Courteously
• Publicly
Carefully consider the privacy settings of personal Facebook posts

Best Practices for Twitter

Clarity is important
Don’t waste people’s time
Be sparing with hashtags and acronyms
Slang is generally inappropriate for workplace tweets

Best Practices for Instagram

Determine how your company wants to be seen, using images and illustrated text to
establish and confirm that narrative
Interact and connect with followers:
• Ask questions and follow up on their comments
• Acknowledge trends in later posts
Use hashtags to cross-reference and gain additional followers

Organizing Informative and Positive Messages

Always consider your audience, purpose, and context
If you use a pattern:
• Understand the rationale behind each pattern so you can modify the pattern when
necessary
• Not every message that uses the basic pattern will have all the elements listed
• Sometimes you can present several elements in one paragraph and sometimes you’ll
need several paragraphs

How to Organize
1. Start with good news or the most important information. Summarize the main points. If the
audience has already raised the issue, make it clear that you’re responding.

2. Give and clarify details, clarification, background. Answer all questions your audience is likely
to have; provide all information necessary to achieve your purposes. If you are asking or answering
multiple questions, number them. Enumeration increases your chances of giving or receiving all
necessary information. Present details in the order of importance to the reader or in some other
logical order.

3. Present any negative elements —as positively as possible. A policy may have limits;
information may be incomplete; the audience may have to satisfy requirements to get a discount or
benefit. Make these negatives clear, but present them as positively as possible.

4. Explain any benefits. Most informative messages need benefits. Show that the policy or
procedure helps your audience, not just the company. Give enough detail to make the benefits clear
and convincing. In letters, you may want to give benefits of dealing with your company as well as
benefits of the product or policy.

In a good-news message, it’s often possible to combine a short benefit with a goodwill ending.

5. Use a goodwill ending: positive, personal, and forward-looking. Shifting your emphasis away
from the message to the specific audience suggests that serving the audience is your real concern.

Subject Line
Serves three purposes
 Aids in filling, retrieving
 Tells readers why they should read
 Sets up framework for message
The subject line is the title of the document. A good subject line meets three criteria:
1. Specific – differentiate message from others on same topic
2. Concise – usually less than 35 characters
3. Appropriate to the message type / Appropriate for the kind of message – must meet
situation and purpose

Pointers for Subject Lines

Specific, concise and catchy
 Include important information/ good news
 Name drop to make connection
 Make e-mail sound easy to deal with
 Create new subject line for reply when
- original becomes irrelevant
- Re: Re: Re: Re: appears
• Use the most important information
• Include good news
• Name drop to make a connection
• Make email sound easy to deal with
• Create new subject line when introducing new topics
• Do not use indefinite dates
• Ensure the automatic subject line is appropriate when replying to a message

Managing information in messages

 Give audience information they need
 Consider your purpose
 Develop a system that lets people know what is new if you send out regular
messages
 Use headings, bullets, numbered lists or checklists in long emails
 Put the most vital information in emails, even if you send an attachment
 Check message for accuracy and completeness
 Remember emails are public documents

Manage the Information in a Transmittal

Organize a transmittal message in this order:
 1. Tell the reader what you’re sending
2. Summarize the main point(s) of the document
3. Give details to help reader grasp message, indicate any special circumstances or
information that would help the reader understand the document
4. Tell the reader what will happen next

Manage the Information in a Summary

The organization of a summary message depends on the content and purpose
• A conversation (internal use) – identify people who were present, topic of
discussion and decisions made, who does what next
• A document summary – start with main points, give supporting evidence or details,
evaluate document if audience wants such advice
• An outside meeting
• Client/customer visit summary – put main point in your company’s view first, use
umbrella paragraph; name points, give details to support your conclusions; use lists,
headings to make structure clear
• Thank you notes – make people willing to help you later, may be short and must be
prompt, must be specific to seem sincere

*use Audience benefits when

Presenting policies
Shaping audience’s attitudes
Stressing benefits presents the audience’s motives positively
Introducing benefits that may not be obvious

Omit benefits when

Present factual information ONLY
Audience’s attitude toward information does not matter
Stressing benefits makes audience seem selfish
Restating them may insult audience’s intelligence

Ending Informative and Positive Messages

 In emails with omitted details and proof, tell readers where to get more information
 In long messages, summarize your basic point
  In a short message containing all the information readers need, write a goodwill
paragraph that refers directly to the reader or just end the email
Goodwill endings should focus on bond between reader and writer, focus on the business
relationship you share with the reader
- Treats reader as individual
- Contains you-attitude, positive emphasis
- Omits standard invitation
Exp: if you have questions, please do not hesitate to call