Eliminate miscommunication in text and chat

A single misinterpreted text can affect your organization’s bottom line. Here’s what to watch out for—and how to get your message across clearly.

The workplace today looks mighty different than it did 20 years ago. Teams are often scattered, with some (or even all) employees working far away from each other. Digital communication is now woven into our everyday lives, with chat and text messaging keeping everyone connected.

One side effect of this profound communication transformation is, unfortunately, miscommunication.

One report estimates that $37 billion is lost yearly due to communication barriers, employee misunderstandings and miscommunication. Things get even more serious in a life-and-death industry like health care, where communication failures were linked to 1,744 deaths in a span of five years.

Communication barriers at your organization might not kill anyone, but they can still cost time and money you can’t easily afford.

Why does text-based communication lend itself more to miscommunication? Look at these reasons:

Lack of context

In a chat or text message, you don’t have the benefit of the context in which a message was sent.

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