Way to Improve Communication with Your Global Clients
Updated: May 7, 2019
Post Written by Alina Vashurina, a head of PR and Communication at Ecwid.
Understand the Culture
First things first: You have to understand how people from different cultures speak or communicate and how they perceive the world around them, as this impacts how they act in any given culture. In my case, I’m Russian in origin. As you may know, Russians are pretty direct and straightforward when expressing ideas and opinions. But coming from this culture, you should consider directness in speakers as sincerity and cordiality, rather than an imposition on your freedom of action.
The point is that in order to effectively understand someone from another culture, you always have to step into their shoes, get into their mindset and look at issues through their eyes.
Simplify Communications
From here, try to keep your spoken and written language very simple and avoid jargon and slang. Employees from outside of the U.S. (like me) may have difficulty understanding culture-specific idioms.
For U.S. employees: Aim to write in simple phrases and short sentences. Get to the point quickly. Be as concise as possible. Being simple and clear will make the translation process faster and easier for your colleagues.
Have Face-to-Face Meetings
Face-to-face meetings allow participants to go over issues and explain more fully, so they are often more productive than communication via email. They also help build mutual trust that technology can build on later. That’s why it’s critical that the first few meetings of a global business team happen face to face.
