Whether you are chatting to a client on Teams or a friend on WeChat... These are the most common things that can improve your communication.
When somebody sends you an IM message, they are interrupting you.
When somebody sends you an email, they are not interrupting you - assuming you keep your notifications off as per Do you minimize your Outlook Distractions? You have made the decision to read your emails, so email is in actual fact far more polite than IM which can be a nuisance.
IM is only to be used if they would like you to do something NOW.
Please don't say just 'Hello' in chat. It's as if you called someone on the phone and said "Hi!" and then put them on hold!
When you do that, you're simply making the other person wait for you to phrase your question, which generates low productivity.
Sending an unnecessary Instant Message is a distraction to the person you sent it to. As the 5 word rule on emails, if your message is less than 5 words, e.g. "Great work!" or "Thanks!", it's probably not required.
When you realize the communication is not simple and there it is going to take much back and forth IMs, say "Can I call?" and continue the conversation through voice.
Communication using voice is much faster than typing a message and it can clear misunderstandings. Encourage people to switch to voice if possible.
It can be very jarring when somebody is called out of the blue and they are not expecting it. They might be deep in a task or talking to a client and by calling them their focus is getting disrupted.
Before calling someone, be sure not to just say 'hello'.
A good way to initiate a call is to warm them up by giving a warning (e.g. “Calling you in 1 min to talk about the Northwind production site being down 💀.”).
Always do a quick investigation before asking for help. When asking a question using IM, always start your conversation with "I have googled this and no luck".
IM can interrupt a person when they are busy, so make sure that you are well prepared and have tried to find the solution another way first. AI tools like ChatGPT are another great option for getting unblocked before bothering someone.
Do you sometimes spend time answering unnecessarily complicated questions? This can be a pain and cost valuable time. Or, when you're asking someone a question about something that is blocking you, do you ever get frustrated when the person reads your message but doesn't reply? This can lead to a series of reminders and time spent chasing them up.
Asking easy questions saves time for both the person asking and the person answering, and gets to the decision as quick as possible.
When messaging someone, it's often tempting to send a big block of text. This can make your thoughts difficult to respond to, especially if there are unrelated subjects. Instead, you should split your thoughts into several individual messages, separated by subject.
Use IM to chase up that important email. You can make it easy for everyone by pasting the email subject for context.
Always start your answer to a question with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ first, then follow that with your opinion and more details.