What Happens During a Communications Audit

For both companies big and small, communication is important. Within an organization, communication happens in both ways. The two of them are external communication and internal communication; the former between customers, clients, the media, stakeholders, and shareholders and the latter between staff members. Once mistakes take place within internal communications, you get unhappy and discouraged staff who may leave the company. Meanwhile, for damages taking place within external communications, your business sales and image will be affected. While this may be so simple to understand, you have to know of its value within an organization. Thus, on the part of the organization, it is important for its management strategy to include a communications plan. This is where the communications audit comes into the picture.

For more information on the benefits of communications audit, view here! The process of communications audit basically comprises analyzing the practices utilized by the organization to determine how effective they are in terms of communication. This can be done in two ways, for certain parts of the organization or for the entire company. Communication problem areas are determined through this. Common issues include misrepresentation, information duplication, information lacks, information blocks, and frequent misunderstandings. Even if a company can have communications audit done in a periodic manner, changing times necessitate such a process. Such changes include the launch of a new service or product, an acquisition or merger, and entry into new markets.

The nature of the communications audit depends on the problems, needs, and type of the organization. Even so, target audiences are identified in the process. In terms of their needs, they differ from an internal audience to an external audience. Identification of channels that will be conveyed and key messages that must be communicated is what you can expect from the process. This means that communications are looked at as they are made by the organization as well as how they receive them.

There is no process as complicated than communicating in business with possible pitfalls for every stage. Is the message provided in a clear manner? Is the medium of transmitting messages the right one? Has the recipient been properly provided the message? Was it understood by them upon receipt? Do you get a channel for feedback as the recipient? Is there an understanding on how feedback can be provided by the recipient? The thing about communication is that you thought you have mentioned a certain thing when in fact your recipients are getting a totally different one.

With communications audit, organizations will be made to realize the difference between what they believe they are doing to what they really are doing. Every stage of the communication process will be assessed. The audit begins by looking into the people involved in sending and receiving messages as well as the ways in which they are communicated.

View here for more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_audit.