James Bregenzer, Jarvis Cook,Timakica Longstreet, Monique
Martin and Lucie Slansky
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Technological advances have
provided both businesses and
customers with the power to
improve the ways they
communicate with each other.
Improved technologies also
bring a new challenge for
businesses to face:
Miscommunication.
Modern Technology..
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For Flickr, technology is the
foundations on which the
company conducts its business.
Flickr accidentally and
permanently –deleted 4,000 –
photos belonging to one of it’s
users due to a
miscommunication via e-mail.
Flickr’s Mistake
Flickr – A web-based
company that offers one of
the most popular photo
management and sharing
applications online.
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Miscommunication
Online business communication can
be easily misinterpreted and
ultimately fail through electronic
channels, when exclusively applied
to the high-level decision making
processes.
―Electronic channels can successfully
augment productive communication
within an organization when applied
to operational and other nonconfidential communication needs‖
(Kupritz, 2011).
Flickr uses human interaction
through e-mail to better asses
high-level decision making.
Kuprtiz’s data suggests that,
―allocating additional resources and
requiring key stakeholders to
interact directly with customers or
with each other would be more
effective‖ (Kupritz, 2011).
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Flickr may improve the
company’s communication
with it’s users by:
Conducting brief phone
conversations between Flickr
account management within
the decision making process
and the users.
Requiring user complaints
that deal with the matter of
potentially deleting an
account to be followed by a
phone call or live chat.
A Solution to Miscommunication Within Flickr
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―Effective email communication
is essential for modern
businesses‖ (Gupta, 2010).
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―There are a wide variety of definite
advantages in communicating via
email—in particular, the speed of
delivering information—however email
communication presents unique
disadvantages and similar liabilities to
businesses in communicating with
customers, such as ease of common
syntax mistakes, deliverability issues and
lack of emotion‖ (Hamilton, 2011, 170).
E-mails are often seen as the preferred
type of costumer-management
communication, in which the costumer
may easily avoid long periods of holding
on the telephone, accent barriers & etc…
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For businesses, it allows the
company to evenly distribute
resources and work load, as well
as allow time to research an issue
before responding to customers in
a manner that is ―consistent with
business polices.‖
―E-mail allows automatic routing
and similar efficiencies, providing
businesses with the opportunity
to maximize efficiency with scarce
resources‖ (Kupritz, 2011).
Why Is E-mail so Important to Modern Organizations?
―Details within emotional emails
provide businesses with valuable
information that is difficult and
expensive to gather through other
communication processes‖ (Gupta,
2010).
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Digital communications offer
business valuable opportunities
and new efficiencies in how to
manage their company and
costumers’ needs effectively.
Managing E-mails efficiently
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―Emotional E-mails‖ –
Costumer complaints regarding
unfair treatment, negligence,
incompetence, rigid protocol and
unfriendly systems.
Business that effectively manage
such e-mails by replying quick and
helpful responses, improve the
business process, communication
efficiency and overall customer
satisfaction.
Emotional e-mails provide
organizations with useful feedback
that may help improve business
processes and coaching agents
Careful and successful
management of emotion e-mails
also directly improves customer
satisfaction and retention. Keeping
the customer happy is ultimately
directly correlated with the
business’ success.
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As Flickr user, Mirco Wilhelm
experienced first-hand, the use of
e-mail by a company offering
costumer service options opens up
the possibility of misinterpretation
and miscommunications.
Communication is one of the
fundamentals to a successful
business, for that reason
challenges presented by
technology pose a very real threat
to the efficiency of an
organization.
Such technological and
communication issues need to be
carefully considered as change
methodologies are adopted.
The Cost of E-Mail Account Management
Works Cited:
Gupta, N., Gilbert, M. & Fabbrizio, G. (2010). CAAGET '10 Proceedings of the
NAACL HLT 2010 Workshop on Computational Approaches to Analysis and
Generation of Emotion in Text. Association for Computational Linguistics
Proceedings, 10-16.
Hamilton, C. (2011). Communicating for Results: A Guide for Business and the
Professions (9th Ed.). Boston: Wadsworth.
Kupritz, V., Cowell, E. (2011). Productive Management Communication Online and
Face-to-Face. Journal of Business Communication, 48, 54-82.
Segall, L. (2011, February 2). Flickr accidentally nukes user's 4,000 photos.
Retrieved February 10, 2011, from CNNMoney.com:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/02/technology/flickr_deletes_account/index.
htm
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