Why over-communication is key to any business success

Does Overcommunication Save Time & Effort?

We’ve all had that meeting that could’ve just been an email, haven’t we? Or rather, taking an extra step back, the meeting could’ve been avoided if everyone had known what they should’ve done!

If you go even deeper, you’ll realize that the reason nobody knew what they were doing was because they were a victim of misinformation in the workplace, and that’s especially prevalent nowadays after the lockdown and people working remotely from home.

Overcommunication is key to disseminating information to both your clients and your employees, they keep your client happy if they can’t directly oversee the work you’re doing. And they keep your employees satisfied with clear and concise objectives that have to be followed.

However, what really is overcommunication, what does it do to your business? Is it one of those new “work-from-home etiquette” techniques that everyone’s talking about or is there more to it?

What Is Overcommunication?

Most people probably heard about the concept of overcommunication from a work mate or a supervisor who told them that they barely communicate enough, so they make it a point to speak more, or share way more information than necessary.

That’s actually a false practice in overcommunication, one we’ll take a closer look at in this article. In essence, overcommunication is saying what needs to be said, when it needs to be, and making absolutely certain that there’s no room for confusion over the information you’re transmitting.

We’re about to dive into overcommunication and how it’s actually your key to succeeding in any business post covid.

How To Use Overcommunication To Reinforce Messages?

If there’s one thing upper and middle management failed to adapt to during the lockdown, it would be communicating. They’ve been so used to physical communication and precise body language that they fail to realize how none of that translates into a text message.

So while an “I don’t think so” would sound like a firm refusal in the office, it might sound like an uncertain stance in the chat, which is why getting into the habit of over-communicating with your employees and clients is essential in order to correctly reinforce important messages that you want to send.

A study showed that someone trying to cut in line to print something in the office and giving a reason why they had to do that had a higher likelihood of succeeding than someone who just said what they came to do, cut in line.

Similarly, if you need to assign a task, or refuse a request, you should attach details as to why that is in both cases.

Businesses that were already in the habit of over-communicating had a much easier time adapting to the lockdown than others.

Simply because overcommunication is your tool to give out accurate information during times of change, say you’re a newly appointed manager trying to dole out tasks to your new team.

Neither of you knows how the other operates, which is why overcommunicating would satisfy both sides. Because overcommunication goes both ways, the manager would be able to correctly transmit the information, and the employee would relay that to both the manager and their team.

What if you’re a business owner that just started a service with a client, the client would appreciate overcommunicating the status of the work more than they would if you just gave them an early and late report.

Can You Avoid Info-Dumping & Oversharing?

Now that we’re done with showcasing the importance of overcommunicating in the workplace, it’s our turn to overcommunicate with you, and before diving into the methods you could use to overcommunicate, you should be aware of what NOT to do if you’re trying to communicate.

First things first, overcommunicating is not oversharing. 

If a crisis happened during the work day and was averted, don’t go into details of the crisis and how you were able to solve it. That just turns off anyone listening, and might even help them to misjudge your business practices.

The next thing you should keep in mind when overcommunicating is to not dump blocks of text on your client and then disappear till the end of the workday, that’s just a recipe for disaster.

Your client isn’t as intimately aware of your work as you are, and if you bombard them with that amount of information before the work even started would give rise to panic and a reluctance to continue working with you.

Finally, overcommunication isn’t about communicating with the client in an open channel that allows you to constantly message them on every small detail that happens during the work day either, that just serves to annoy them.

What you really should be doing when you’re overcommunicating is this…

Your Messages Must Be Simple & Focused

Your messages have to be clear, simple, and to the point.

That doesn’t mean that you should shove all the information you need to transmit to the client in 2-3 sentences! 

What we’re saying is that you need to trim out any unnecessary tidbits that aren’t important to the work at hand.

During your work day, you’re not trying to get to know your client better, and they have expectations for the job, besides the daily greeting, you need to tell them exactly what you plan on doing during the day, as well as what you decided to add or remove from that, and end with what you did end up doing.

It could be in the form of a log or an organized message, just avoid intimidating text blocks!

Part of overcommunication is to clearly set expectations with the client on how the updates are going to arrive, let them know that you’re going to be contacting them at least 3-4 times a day in order to give your updates, and always ask for feedback by the end.

What you really want to avoid is a disgruntled client, that’s because they’re more likely to ignore and avoid your business in any future projects than they are of letting you know just what you did wrong, which is why overcommunication is key to staying in the green zone.

Can You Balance Between Frequent Checkups & Avoid Micromanaging?

Besides clients, overcommunication is imperative with your team. Whether you are a business owner talking to their department heads, or a manager that’s assigned to a team, you need to overcommunicate with them.

Frequently check on your team in order to get a handle on the situation, you should never say “Last I checked they were doing this”, it gives an unreliable image to your client or manager.

You should always know what’s going on, and encourage your team to overcommunicate with you as well since it ensures everyone is satisfied and safe from any miscommunication or working on an entirely different task than what’s expected, it also helps to detect any crisis before they happen and nip them in the bud.

Schedule Weekly 1 on 1s

A great way to ensure overcommunication is to schedule a weekly one-on-one with your team or your department heads, just as a way to catch up as well as a chance for them to give any feedback they have.

Text is limiting when it comes to giving updates, even if they’re constant, and by using correct communication techniques, you’ll be able to overcommunicate what you want your team to be doing, as well as encourage them to give you as much information as you need in order to make decisions.

These weekly one on ones, if done correctly, can help build a sense of community and safety, and would encourage your team to contribute more in the way of communication or work as well.

Do You Have to Stick to One Messaging App?

Probably a trap that hundreds of businesses fall into is just sticking to one messaging app and limiting all communication to be on there, which is a nightmare for a lot of people.

If your client hasn’t heard of slack and just made an account in order to oversee how the project is going, you shouldn’t limit your updates to only slack, should you? They might not even check the app for days on end.

If they come back and they see 50+ messages waiting for them to be seen, they’re unlikely to have a good time working with you.

If instead, you were to update your client through their chosen messaging app, as well as yours, you’ll be keeping both sides happy and have backup logs just in case anything happens.

For your team, you should stay on one messaging platform most of the time. However, if there’s an emergency, your team shouldn’t feel embarrassed to message you on another platform. There might be a general outage or a cluttered feed.

Never keep someone waiting on news

The most important point to keep in mind when you’re overcommunicating with someone is to never keep them waiting on news, even if they don’t ask for any.

If you finished a task, let your manager know instead of just moving on to the next one, there might be changes to the work day that happened after your task, or there might be a myriad of other reasons why they would be waiting on your update.

Your client would rarely ever ask for news on the project. However, that doesn’t mean that they’re not expecting any.

Always remember that it’s better to arrive overdressed, than underdressed in an occasion, and by overcommunicating, you’ll be eliminating a lot of problems that could’ve happened!

We hope this article helped you get the hang of the importance of overcommunication in the workplace, and how it’s actually your #1 tool to accurately transmit information both for your team and to your client.