The Importance of Communication Skills

Question

What is the importance of communication skills?

Answer

Communication skills are vital in not only everyday life and situations, but when working with others (Adair, 2009). They often involve some form of social interaction using a common language and set of roles that each of the people included will understand (Adair, 2009; Hargie, 2006). However, it is said that good communication skills or a strong appreciation of how to apply them are crucial for a range of social benefits, as well as within working life (van Servellen, 2009; Guffey and Almonte, 2010). Within the workplace, communication skills are an essential part of everyday business, especially when liaising with customers (Tulsky, 2005; Back et al, 2003), but also when interacting with other employees - so much so, that insufficient levels of communication, or poor communication skills, can result in a negative experience (Back et al, 2003; Guffey and Almonte, 2010), for both customers and employees. Communication is a highly important factor when it comes to providing a service (Tulsky, 2005). By recording customer feedback, businesses can listen to what their customers need and ultimately provide a sufficient level of service, if not surpass expectations (Hargie, 2006; Tulsky, 2005), especially when strong communications skills are used to facilitate this (Guffey and Almonte, 2010). In addition, it allows for trust to be built within the work place, when open communication is used (Tulsky, 2005). This can prove important, not only for customer relationship building, but for employee satisfaction too (Adair, 2009; Guffey and Almonte, 2010).

References

Adair, J. (2009) Effective Communication: The Most Important Management Skill of All, Pan Books, London Back, A. L., Arnold, R. M., Tulsky, J. A., Baile, W. F., and Fryer-Edwards, K. A. (2003) “Teaching Communication Skills to Medical Oncology Fellows”, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 21 (12) pp. 2433-2436 Guffey, M. E. and Almonte, R. (2010) Essentials of Business Communication, Nelson Education, Toronto Hargie, O. (2006) The Handbook of Communication Skills, 3rd Edition, Routledge, Hove Van Servellen, G. (2009) Communicaton Skills for the Health Care Professional: Concepts, Practice and Evidence, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury Tulsky, J. A. (2005) “Beyond Advanced Directives: Importance of Communication Skills at the End of Life”, Journal of the American Medical Association, 294 (3), pp. 359-365