Face-to-Face Is Still The Best

Even after many years of experience in client relations and account management, I still find interpersonal communication to be the best. Interpersonal communication usually applies to spoken communication between two or more people on a personal face-to-face level. Some types of communication that takes place in the workplace include interviews, client meetings, board meetings, and sales visits.

In this day and age, the internet and social media have gained so much popularity on how businesses communicate with their stakeholders. There is no denying that the continuous evotuion of communication through the use of technology would still have its hold 10 or 20 years from now. This still leaves me to believe that interpersonal or face-to-face communication is still the best form of communication when dealing with your audiences because of two reasons:

* It allows for immediate feedback - There are situations when we simply need to find out what our audiences think of a certain product or service, or maybe yet, know their views on extremely sensitive or important issues. One good example of this is a town hall meeting. A few weeks ago, I presented my 'PR in the news' in class. I've discussed about the situation of a rural municipality's opposition to a group home to be operated in their community. I made some research on the ways the group home operator communicated its proposal to the residents of that community and found out that there was no element of interpersonal communication that took place between the organization and the area residents of that municipality. If only a town hall meeting was conducted, the group operator could have known and received very important information from the area residents which in turn could have allowed them to communicate their position very clearly. Feedbacks are always important; it helps us know what our audiences think and feel about certain issues. In knowing these, people in public relations will be able to take a second look at their communication strategies and see how effective they are, and whether they need to change or improve their existing messages. Feedbacks will also allow for the development or improvement of products, services and even established procedures in an organization.

* It's more personal - We live in a world where everything runs on a fast pace. People are often busy and companies adapt ways that will allow them to communicate their messages to their audiences. We see how lucrative advertising and marketing can be; millions of dollars are spent on flyers, direct mailers, billboards, newspaper ads, etc. For some companies, resorting to a seemingly personal way of communicating would mean calling on the phone or sendng an email but these things don't define nor replace the significance of interpersonal, face-to-face communication. There is something special when people talk and see one another in person (although nowadays, the use of certain technology and programs allow us to conduct interperosnal communication). Even if a client has a complaint but if handled well and personally by let's say, an account manager, matters are expected to run on a better course. From a public relations point of view, I think nothing can replace the importance of face-to-face communication. Even if we are bombarded with technology and by all the different gadgets that we use to communicate and reach out to our audiences, we still need to incorporate that element of interpersonal communication in order to build and hasten our relationships with our audiences.

So next time we do anything that will require us to communicate with our audineces, let's consider the possibility of including interpersonal communication (if allowable). This will surely make a difference in delivering our messages and finding out where our audiences are coming from.