The job title of “consultant” can often be a head-scratcher to onlookers: anyone who works in the field knows how people tend to respond to their career. That’s why there are plenty of pages ranking on Google with titles like “What do consultants really do?” But to their clients, consultants are often a valuable lifeline. That’s because consultants provide expert-level advice, can address the most complex business challenges, and are capable of steering their clients’ businesses towards powerful, sustainable growth.
But in order for consultancy teams to successfully accomplish their goals with clients, they need to have seamless communication practices, and utilize communication tools which support their complex and challenging level of work.
Tools for effective communication for consultancy groups go far beyond simple chat apps and emails. The leading consultancy communication tools today offer elevated experiences which can be completely tailored to meet the needs of your team, allow for messaging based on geography or behavioral groups, provide users with effective templates, and offer elements like surveys, scheduling, and even social recognition.
Here’s everything you need to know about how communication tools can elevate and support the work on consultancy teams.
Why Regular Apps Just Won’t Cut It
Why is it that consultancy teams should utilize tools for effective communication instead of just using “regular” messaging apps? The truth of the matter is that the work consultancy groups does is far too important (and too high stakes) to leave the fate of this work up to chance, and it needs to be supported by robust, next-generation communication tools.
Across the board in the workplace, 86% of employees and executives say the leading cause of errors in the workplace is a “lack of effective collaborations and communication.” Considering the fact that consultants can bill (on average) between $100 and $350 an hour, and that some consultancy contracts can be upwards of a million dollars, it’s paramount that consultancy teams do everything they can to successfully accomplish their goals with clients.
While all teams can benefit from communication tools, consultancy teams might find an even greater value in them, because they can face some particular challenges. The first is that consultancy teams are often composed of experts of different professional backgrounds, with varying skills and expertise. This diversity is what enhances the value of the consultancy team, but it can also lead to some communication challenges. Everyone needs to be able to share their ideas and expertise, in a place which supports knowledge sharing and different communication styles.
Next, consultancy teams often aren’t working in the same location, and instead might be dispersed, working across different locations and time zones. These geographical barriers can make it challenging to maintain rapid and seamless communication (without the proper communication tools). Even basic tasks such as scheduling meetings, planning activities, and sharing ideas can become muddled and riddled with miscommunication, if a team doesn’t have proper support.
It’s also important to note that the nature of consultancy work is often complex and time sensitive. Excellent communication tools can help support the significant amounts of data, research, reports, and documents that consultancy teams often work with. Managing and working with this information without effective support can be overwhelming or disorganized, and can potentially lead to information overload for employees. Plus, given the tight deadlines and rapid decision-making required of consultancy groups, it’s critical that teams can easily give timely responses and are clearly notified about messages.
In short: when consultancy teams want to excel at timely, effective, and flawless communication, they can turn to today’s communication tools.
What Do Communication Tools Really Do?
Today’s leading tools for effective communication don’t just provide a one-stop-shop platform for messages (although that’s part of what they do). They also have a whole host of features which can be particularly useful to consultancy teams. These features and abilities include:
- Next-generation messaging: Sure, real-time messaging is crucial to consultancy teams. But today’s tools for effective communication go beyond simple DMs. For example, depending on which platform your team uses, you might be able to tailor the reach of your messages based on geographies, behavioral groups, and individuals, with intelligent tools for sending your messages across different channels. You can also integrate these tools with your favorite communication apps, and can take advantage of bespoke newsfeeds for your team.
- Powerful dashboard features: Your current messaging dashboard is probably still in the era of the carrier pigeon, compared to what some of today’s tools can do. The features of today’s leading communication tools include things such as intelligent routing, message templates, send and receive history, usage tracking, and custom integrations.
- Forms and surveys, at the touch of a button: Communication for consultancy teams isn’t just messages and emails: forms and surveys are also crucial to comprehensive communication. You can send out a weekly pulse survey, support your open enrollment processes, or deploy a range of custom forms & surveys which can include yes/no, scale or NPS, and open-ended responses.
- Easy breezy scheduling: Consultancy teams can operate on tight, busy schedules, and team members need tools which help them seamlessly coordinate and plan everything from meetings to classes. With today’s communication tools you can tailor schedules to each employee based on relevancy, reducing clutter and confusion. You can also facilitate sign-ups (with optional capacity limits) and verify check-ins (using code scanning for ticketing and entry). Interested in live video sessions? These systems enable it without the need for a third party. You can also process payments for any service, right from your calendar.
- Support social recognition (and see how powerful it is): Social recognition can be a critical factor in the success of consultancy groups. Data tells us that in general, when employees feel they’ve received recognition, organizations experience a boost in productivity, and a decrease in absenteeism. Employees also feel the difference, with 90% of them saying that recognition makes them work harder.
How can you easily recognize the hard work of your consultants? With the help of effective communication tools, which support employee recognition and challenges. These tools allow any point of interaction to be incentivized, meaning you can reward employees for things like e-learning or reading daily notices. You can also support the physical wellbeing of your team with step tracking and integration with wearables (such as FitBit and Apple Watch).
Other social recognition features can include a “kudos” system, where your workforce can easily recognize one another for hard work and a job well done. Both employers and employees can send a note of thanks any time, meaning that team members can always feel gratitude for the work they put in.
Tips For Deploying Communication Tools
In order for consultancy teams to successfully use tools for effective communication, here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Choose your tool with care: The first and most critical factor in the success of a communication tool is likely going to be the tool you choose. It needs to be reliable, secure, user-friendly, and have a host of features your team will actually use. Be sure to outline the features that will most benefit your consultancy team, and align the choice of your communication tool to your business goals.
- Establish guidelines and expectations: How quickly do you expect your dispersed team to respond to messages, even if they’re across different time zones? Do you expect your consultancy team members to give one another kudos on a regular basis? By establishing guidelines and expectations for using communication tools, your team will know how to succeed with the tools that are given to them.
- Encourage active participation and responses: The last thing you probably want is for your team to end up with a growing pile of unread messages and emails. In order for your team to succeed with communication tools, encourage your team members to actively participate in discussions, ask questions, and provide insights, in order to foster a collaborative work environment. Take advantage of how you can use tools for status updates to share progress and milestones. Also, seek timely responses and emphasize prompt responses, to maintain an efficient communication flow.
Your Powerhouse Consultants Deserve Powerhouse Communication Tools
Let’s face it: your talented team of experts need a communication tool that is up to par with their quality of work, and basic messaging and email apps just aren’t going to cut it. That’s where we come here. Refresh is a comprehensive communication platform that offers tailored HR programs with infinite segmentation. We deliver valuable, turnkey (yet flexible) HR solutions, including Universal Scheduling, Dynamic Videos, Nutrition Tracking, Rewards & Perks, Insurance, and Reimbursement.
Interested in seeing how Refresh can transform the way your consultancy team communicates? Schedule a demo today.