Mixed messages: How to avoid miscommunication when speaking with clients via phone or Internet

A smartphone, with its computer capacity, gives access to conversations and correspondence anywhere at any time, but sometimes that can cause problems -- and research has shown nothing beats a face-to-face meeting.

Rhett Hendrickson, owner of Hendrickson Business Advisors in Cape Girardeau, cites Dr. Albert Mehrabian's book, "Silent Messages." Mehrabian, professor emeritus at the University of California -- Los Angeles and a pioneer in understanding communications since the 1960s, formulated a statistical equation for conveying emotions in a message. Mehrabian's theory is that 55 percent of the feeling of a message is conveyed through body language, 38 percent through the speaker's tone of voice and 7 percent through the words themselves.

That means even with a phone call, people are working with only 38 percent of the ability to communicate emotion, a critical part of understanding the meaning behind any message.

"I'm very animated, so when I talk to someone, my voice inflection is an extension of my body language and my smile and eye contact," says Matt Carnaghi, director of business development at Harness Digital Marketing, which is based in Herrin, Illinois, but has clients in Southeast Missouri and even as far as St. Louis and Chicago.

When using email, or even posting a message on Facebook, the ability to convey emotion drops to only 7 percent.

"That's why we invented emoticons," Hendrickson says. "Most people find it very difficult to convey emotions through the written word."

Carnaghi says the goofy-looking symbols are useful tools.

"Emoticons -- people feel silly using them, by they can be very helpful," he says.

Lacking body language or intonation can cause problems, because the writer may mean to convey one emotion, but the reader is inferring his or her own emotions into the writing.

Sometimes an email might seem abrupt or even rude, especially when the writer conveys the information matter-of-factly.

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"When I take an email in a bad way, I call the sender," Hendrickson says.

Even though it's not something most people do, confronting a potential misunderstanding immediately is better than letting the negative feelings fester.

"We tend not to ask for clarification," Hendrickson says.

Sometimes a person's tone of voice may be off-putting, and such a situation needs to be handled with care.

"If you say, 'I don't appreciate that tone of voice,' now we are in a fight and we started it," he says. "Those are fighting words. Sometimes we start off with our dukes up."

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There's a simple solution to such a problem.

"The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it," advises Hendrickson, a senior Dale Carnegie trainer.

The issue of miscommunication occurs most frequently with people who are relative strangers, such as new customers.

Left with a paltry 7 percent of the ability to convey feelings in correspondence, what's the best way to make sure the right message is received?

Carnaghi posts blogs on behalf of clients and his own company, and says even for him, it can be tricky.

He recalls a time he posted a blog that was read by a potential client who inferred that it was about him. He in turn refused to do business with Carnaghi.

Though Carnaghi said he didn't really count it as a loss, it does show how easily the written word can be misconstrued.

A practice that is standard at Hendrickson Business Advisors is having another employee read over emails to new customers, just to see if a second person reads in anything negative.

"Having another set of eyes is really important," Hendrickson says.

Another technique is hearing the words spoken before sending them off to a client.

"Read emails aloud before you send them," Hendrickson advises. "If it's going to be a long one, I don't enter the recipient's email address."

That is a safeguard to prevent hitting "send" prematurely.

When using a social media platform to convey a company message, sometimes it's better left to the pros.

Carnaghi's company writes, creates, publishes and manages social media marketing content for clients.

"Social media marketing is extremely different from all other traditional methods, because you are on a social platform -- if you come across too commercialized, or in a way that you're not trying to communicate or be social or have some kind of social interaction, it's very easy to turn people off," he says. "In the same sense, it's very important to get that image and that voice of our clients out there."

A big part of success in conveying a message via Facebook is to be responsive.

"When you're marketing to a consumer base, no matter what that base is, if someone is trying to interact and engage with your company, it's very important to show that you're responsive," Carnaghi says. "My first and most important recommendation is to respond. I know it sounds simple, but there are many, many times, when either inner-office communications or business emails are sent and they are intentionally, or unintentionally, not answered."

Diane O. Sides, an expert in etiquette at Southeast Missouri State University, says there's no hard and fast rule for how promptly emails should be answered.

"Some emails need to be responded to immediately, as they can be time sensitive," says Sides, who is assistant to the university president and assistant secretary to the board of regents. "In actuality, the best rule is to respond to an email as soon as you possibly can."