• Recognize the advantages and disadvantages of using only audio to communicate in business
• Understand the five stages of a telephone conversation
• Understand how to improve audio communications

Benefits of Audio Communication

The strengths of audio—as compared with written communication—are beneficial in a lot of business situations. 

Immediacy

A conversation is synchronous. That is, everyone is participating at the same time. Email or IM is asynchronous, meaning you may not get a response right away, and when you do hear from other people, their responses are usually carefully considered and edited. Sometimes, this is good, especially if you want people to spend some time on a question or idea.

However, there are situations when audio represents a stronger choice:

• Speed is important. When a decision needs to be made quickly, you don’t want people to take their time to answer an email and then respond to all the other emails they receive on the topic
• Reactions are helpful. When it’s helpful to hear people’s tone of voice so you can gauge their certainty, enthusiasm, or other emotion
• Everyone understanding is important. When you want to ensure that everyone has understood what’s being said; conversation allows people to ask questions and clarify their comments in the moment, which can cut down on confusion later

Easy to Use

Audio is generally also pretty easy to use. Everyone is usually familiar with making a phone call. Even if there are steps to go through to get on a conference line, it’s a relatively unintimidating technology. This also means that having audio in place as a backup for more complex technologies is always a good idea.

Challenges of Using Audio Communication

Audio does have some disadvantages, especially compared with other, more sophisticated methods of remote conferencing.

• No facial expressions. While audio does allow you to hear emotion in people’s voices, it doesn’t let you read facial expressions, which can be helpful when a topic is sensitive or challenging.
• Visual cues are missing. Another aspect of not being able to see faces is that people tend to interrupt each other more because there are no visual cues that someone is starting to speak or intends to keep speaking.
• Distractions are invisible. Audio-only also allows people to be distracted or to engage in multitasking while still technically being “on the call” since no one can see what they’re doing. The result of this is that you have people dialed in but tuned out.
  • Colleagues may be checking emails or reading other materials while on the call, especially if they are not expected to participate much in the conversation.
  • One consultant who works from home confessed that he used monthly board meeting calls as an opportunity to clean the cat box while on the call.

Sometimes video or screen sharing offers a more effective means of remote conferencing, but if audio does what you need it to, it’s easy and familiar.