Cross-cultural communication is one of the hardest ways to replicate a strong business relationship. Communication with international clients and audiences can become awkward with the potential of mishaps far too easily. This is most common if you lack the right information about the region, culture, traditions, and especially with no knowledge of the language.
This leads us to internationalization—one of the top issues for an entrepreneur when dealing with an international audience. Therefore global communication is challenging.
Communication creates an in-depth look not only for local businesses but also for the international ones. So keeping this perspective in mind lets share some exclusive ways to optimize the communication link;
1. Use of language
At the international level, the use of business translation services is the normal routine. To overcome the language barrier, hiring linguistic partners is one of the best strategies you can implement. A change of ideas, designs, and product information with your diverse team, either at the regional office or overseas, is how you communicate. The more diverse a team is, the harder the communication can be at so many levels.
From the customers’ point of view, using translation and localization for the official website, mobile app, product descriptions, and blogs, etc., is highly effective. Especially when you are targeting audiences other than English speakers, language can become your powerful tool to advertise.
2. Learn to adapt to time zones
Another factor you need to cater to is the time difference. For instance, if your regional offices and clients are based in different regions, you have to overcome the time differences too.
In a global company, a well-organized management system indicates having professional protocols in place to avoid any miscommunication. Multiple offices around the globe mean you face variations in time zones. Because of the geographical distances, it becomes hard to maintain the corporate culture. To resolve this issue, the team is hustled on rotational shifts, emails are timely scheduled, and most importantly organizing the business calendar makes a huge difference in communication.
3. Distinct cultural background
Language is the root of culture. Business behaviour varies drastically from country to country. European business entities are cautious to make big moves; they plan and repeatedly go over their decisions before opting for a final choice. Contrary to this traditional practice, businesses in the US are more risk-takers; they believe in creating opportunities.
Chinese business culture is trendiest and keeps changing so which one of the above you think will take the risk to launch their product in China? Although most answers will be in favor of the US, however, you do need to have proper communication with the local partners before you decide to make your move.
It’s rather essential to understand the local business matrix of a foreign market.
4. Legislation rules
Laws, regulations, and policies differ from country to country. Even the use of copyright content (including images) varies. It can complicate matters when you are dealing with the international market. To overcome this residue, the best action is to keep using business translation services as most of them also provide legal translation services to their clients.
With the help of your translation partners, you have a better understanding of the conditions, court rulings; can make the necessary changes in the agreements, and so on. Any internet-based company is more prone to suffer a miscommunication gap if they do not take the right precautions.
5. Create a multilingual website
The most common move in the rule book is to translate your website. As we mentioned earlier, the more you translate and localize the content, the more attractive your website is for the native audience. Translate accordingly to the audience’s preferences, and it will facilitate seamless communication.
Luckily, for global companies, they can use either machine translation or human translation. A hybrid approach is, however recommended to make things work in the international market.
6. Plan the meeting culture
Remember the time zones? An organized business schedule means you get to plan meetings too. This way, your associates are timely notified despite the geographical differences. A regular meeting even on a video call replicates the results of an in-person meeting.
Some of the apps are quite popular in use to minimize such problems like Zoom, BlueJeans, or Google Hangouts. This allows employees to flex their work schedules for the meeting and handle important tasks beforehand. Such tools are always handy to control the communication gap that otherwise may occur.
A meeting culture assures that very detail, and new step is taken care of and being shared with the employees (or major stakeholders). So yes, for international companies, the use of such apps is always resourceful.
7. Use of cloud storage solutions
Dropbox and Google Drive are two immense solutions for cloud storage solutions. They make the required information accessible in a convenient manner, and managing the data becomes hassle-free.
High maintenance of documents and arrangement of data is time taking process, and the constant updates may face scrutiny otherwise in case a file goes missing. Certain tools like Basecamp and Atlassian can be used to manage the workloads department wise. You can share your tasks and prioritize them on these project management software. Comments can be given, and once a task is completed information can be managed accordingly.
Such collaborative measures are useful to communicate properly despite the geographical distance or time zone difference.
Communication doesn’t necessarily mean a face to face conversation. It means being able to convey the message at the right time to the right person. We have mentioned some of the precarious was to optimize communication regardless of wherever your offices might be.
These communication techniques are beneficial if you have a multilingual staff or freelancers as part of your team. To keep them working and organized a strong communication hold is a must.
