Real-Life Communication
You're busy working on a website at your company, E-Tailor Internet
Consulting, when the phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Hello,
my name is Judy Nubee. I got your number from the Yellow Pages. I'm thinking
about selling my products on the Internet, but I don't know anything about
it. Can I meet with you to talk about it?"
You reply: "Well, Judy,
I'm pretty busy the next few days. Tell me, how many pages are you going to
need? And how much space are you going to need on our server?"
She
says, "Megs? I'm afraid I don't understand. I hardly even use a computer,
never mind the Internet. My friend recommended I see about getting a website
to sell my soapstone carvings. People say they're quite good."
You
say: "Yeah, I'm sure they're great. Look, we charge about $10,000 for a typical
website. How much are you looking to spend? If it's just a basic website you
need, you probably just need us to do some HTML programming. That isn't too
expensive."
That's too much for Judy. "Huh? HTML? I'm sorry for disturbing
you, but I don't think you can help me. Goodbye."
If
you were an Internet consultant and spoke to potential clients this way, you
wouldn't be in business long. Of the many skills Internet consultants need,
"The ability to communicate is the most important," says Internet consultant
Allan Todd.
"You're kind of like a teacher," says Todd. "Sometimes
you have to teach a client what it is you're doing for them to trust you.
You don't want to tell them everything you do, but you want to tell them sort
of at a medium level so that they understand what you're doing."
Having
good communications skills means using words that the client understands.
It also means talking to the client respectfully. The telephone conversation
above contains impolite phrases and technical terms. Rewrite the above exchange,
eliminating the technical terms and replacing the impolite phrases with polite
ones.