There could be many different situations that require you to communicate with multiple clients at the same time. Face to face meetings often provide the best form of personal communication, but often this is simply not possible, especially if schedules clash or you are dealing with clients in a remote location.
Thankfully, advances in communications technology give plenty of effective options. Teleconferencing is one proven method that has benefited from the advent of the internet. There are also teleconferencing services that can cater to dozens of participants at the same time. Video chat services are useful when a face to face is preferable, but participants are not able to all be in the same place at the same time.
Bring Your Device or BYOD, is a practice that’s on the rise in businesses of all shapes and sizes. With many employees possessing their smartphones, tablets, and other devices, many businesses are tapping into the flexibility of allowing staff to use their own devices for business purposes. There are certain security issues to bear in mind, especially if employees are accessing sensitive materials or workplace networks, but BYOD can be a convenient option, and many smartphones can now access conferencing services via built-in features or downloadable apps.
If you don’t need to communicate face to face or verbally, group emails and group chats could be another option. Cc’d emails (‘cc’ is short for ‘carbon copy’ in case you’d always wondered) are a good way to send information to multiple clients and other involved parties at the same time, but care should be taken to make sure that sensitive information only reaches the people it should. A bcc (blind carbon copy) can be used to conceal the identities and addresses of people in the field from other recipients.
Group chats are another great way of communicating when text is a suitable medium. Log-ins can ensure that only appropriate people participate, and there are many different apps, web conference services and even social media features that allow groups to hold their private chats.
The cloud-based collaborative software can also allow you to communicate with colleagues and clients alike. Collaborative office or design software, for example, can facilitate teams from different departments to work together on the same project. Bringing clients into the fold where appropriate could also allow them to leave feedback or make their contributions. Setting up an intranet, meanwhile, is more likely to be used within a business than for bringing in outside clients, but can be extremely useful for disseminating news releases, eliciting feedback and posting job opportunities.
Technology can boost businesses in all sorts of ways, but the field of communication is one that has seen some of the biggest changes and improvements
