In foreign trade, telephone communication is sometimes more effective than text or email communication?

Our company is a production and trade foreign trade company. For communication with customers, email and instant chat tools are the most used. On the contrary, telephone communication will become scarce due to time difference and cost. But what happened today made our business team realize that phone communication is faster, more effective and more accurate than email and text communication at critical times.

Today our colleagues in the business department encountered a problem. Regarding the terms of the confidentiality agreement, it is actually very simple, but our colleagues still habitually use instant chat tools to communicate with customers, and both parties use English. It was good at first, but as the problem was communicated, misunderstandings began to arise. Due to the difference in word understanding between the two parties, the direction of communication has changed unknowingly.

The colleagues in the business department thought that the client had put forward new requirements, so they continued to explain their views following the other party's topic. As the conversation became more and more biased, the client began to deepen his misunderstanding, until the client became angry and thought my colleague was unprofessional.

Fortunately, after another colleague listened to the incident, he found that there might be a misunderstanding between the two sides. Everyone may have digressed. I suggest that my colleague call the other party to communicate, maybe this can be restored.

As a result, my colleague made a phone call. In less than 5 minutes, he not only became happy, but also successfully signed a confidential development agreement with the other party. This thing tells us that the difference in language, even if one's English level is very high, communication through text will still cause misunderstanding.

Telephone communication will immediately detect the other's concerns and correct the misunderstanding of both parties in time.

Dongguan Zhanyi Commodity Technology Co., Ltd. is a foreign trade company that produces stainless steel drinking bottle. Our company faces the global market, provides ODM/OEM business, and can provide customers with free technical consultation and so on. Global buyers are welcome to visit our company's website for product information. In addition to tea cups, we also have hundreds of products.