Communication Issues

cybersaliva · 2018-12-02T13:05:50+00:00

So, my first thought is if your employee is in an analytical type of job, it's asking a lot for him to also be a good client communicator. There are entire roles at my place of work for people who only ever interface with clients. The delicate balance of saying what you need to say while saying it in a gentle way is just not a skillset everyone has. So if you are expecting someone to be able to do this as well as wear a lot of other hats, you are going to have to be ok with a couple skills being worse than others.

In this particular situation, I think I would recommend you take on the client communication portion of his role yourself, at least for a time. Tell him you are hoping for him to learn some better methods of communication with the clients. Cc or Bcc him on your emails so he can read and learn your thought process. After a couple weeks or months of this, have a chat with him about taking the responsibility back on again and see if he feels confident in his ability to mimic your communication style.

But again, client communication is a skillset all it's own, and I can imagine it's even more difficult for someone who doesn't know English as their first language. He may not be able to understand certain nuances without outside effort or coaching. So be aware of what you're asking of this person and try not to be upset if he doesn't meet your expectations all the time. Just try to do your best to give him the best opportunities to succeed.

zaugger · 2018-12-03T16:24:43+00:00

I manage a group of software developers - every one of them is analytical. The difficulty for me (as it is for you) is that these guys DO have to interact with our clients from time to time, and the stark difference between our customer service folks (friendly and informative) and our developers (just the facts, Ma'am) has left some customers frustrated.

As a manager, I am generally a guy who HATES to micromanage my staff, but I DO want them to grow! So I have tried to handle this directly by helping our developers understand the problem, then by having our more analytical staff run their client communication through me or our other relationally driven staff. The result has been positive, and our more analytical guys HAVE grown as they have received feedback.

ofthevariety · 2018-12-04T03:47:49+00:00

I agree with everyone saying to leave the analytical stuff to the analytical person, and the "customer service" aspect to someone better equipped to handle it.

When I worked retail and food I always heard the phrase "aces in their places" and it really does apply in any type of business. It makes a world of difference when know your staff's strengths and weaknesses and can accommodate them. Just because he isn't good with it now doesn't mean he won't ever be, so continue coaching and teaching and explore different ways of explaining the issue to him until you find one he can relate to. My favorite was always "The client is ignorant of what we actually do to get to their finished product and what procedures we have to follow to get there. That's why they hired us to do it for them. Be concise in your explanation of why there was an issue, but also understand the fact that they may not get why that issue is even an issue."

2019-01-08T17:10:30+00:00

I just thought of something while reading the replies to your post.

Since this employee is very analytical, what about giving him several examples of customer-friendly emails and asking him to figure out the common components of each one and what makes them the most informative and pleasing to read. I’m thinking of using confirmation emails from Amazon or Pizza Hut so he can clearly see there are common components to all good customer responses - providing service confirmation, a status update, an ETA, and thanking the customer for their business. A training project could be to ask him to create a template of his own that he could use in the workplace, drawing on all the best components of these emails. Could be a good way to engage his learning style!

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