Verbal
Verbal communication is one of the most used type of communication within South Cheshire College as all different departments work and communicate together. Advantages of the verbal communication are easy to see as when you go to talk face to face with other lecturer/tutor/department manager you can ask questions to each other and understand the information provided with a lot of details. You can see each other reactions and body language as well and this will give you a feedback on what other person thought about the information provided to them. This will help you to understand whenever the information you gave to the other person was positive or negative. In South Cheshire college lecturer of a specific department e.g. Business department will gather information from their department manager about upcoming events or any changes that they introduce to the course. Disadvantage of the verbal communication can be language barrier as there might be some student that doesn’t understand English and the lecturer cannot talk with the other person or someone couldn’t cope with the accent of the other person could cause a lot of misunderstanding as well. Another disadvantage of verbal communication is time. By contacting other departments face to face, both department managers needs to find some time to talk to each other so it is a bit time wasted.
Written
Written communication between the departments in South Cheshire College is also very used. Departments will contact different departments through reports ,e-mails with important information about upcoming events or so. Lecturers will also write different reports to a lot of students about their behaviour/attendance/grades to their parents. Different departments will also be in charge of making posters/leaflets for the college to give out to their customers. Also all the letters that South Cheshire College sends out to their customers about changes about their course or about any upcoming events. Advantages of written communication is that it can be easily understood and easy to read. It is also a permanent means of communication; it is useful when record maintenance is required. Disadvantages of written communication is time-consuming and the feedback is not immediate. You will need to wait until the other person reads the information you provided them with, then they will have to write their answer back to you. So until you get the feedback, there will be loads of time wasted. Sending the message takes time as well. Too much paper work/e-mails that might go missing and then you would have to write/print new paper work which is time and money wasting. E-mails/letters may be send to the wrong person. It can also be easily deleted or misunderstood.
Multimedia
South Cheshire College uses a lot of multimedia communication between the departments and the customers. There are loads of projectors around South Cheshire College with different presentations about different courses or an upcoming events. There is also a TV installed next to the canteen that provides information from the news in the UK. Multimedia communication is also used when the department manager is providing information to his department people about new changes to the department/course by making a presentation and showing them the changes you would like to do. Also presentations that provides grades/attendance of every student within a department e.g. IT department. Advantages of multimedia communication is providing high quality video/images on the presentations, it’s easy to use, Reduces training cost. Everyone can make a simple presentation and there is no high IT skills required. It is also more appealing over traditional lecture based methods. Disadvantages of using multimedia communication are that disabled people (blind, deaf) will not use this type of communication. It also requires special hardware and it’s not always east to configure. Customers may not pay attention to the projectors on the South Cheshire College corridors which means that the information provided on the presentation will not be noticed by them.
Web – based
South Cheshire College uses their web page as their web-based communication between the customers. IT department is in charge of the website and they are providing most important information to all customers with internet access. They provide the list of all courses that South Cheshire College is running, timetable of all half terms as well. On their website you will be able to find out everything about the college. You will know if there is any upcoming events and you will be able to find out more about the event as well as joining it online. You will also have access to contact South Cheshire College and met up with different department managers if you would like to join one of the courses. From the website you will be able to gather the most important information that you need to know when you want to join South Cheshire College. There are loads of different pictures of South Cheshire College and you can see the inside of the college as well. Website also has telephone number, fax and email of the South Cheshire College that customers can use in order to get in touch with different departments. Advantages of web-based communication is that you can provide a lot of important information, to as many customers as possible while only doing one method of advertisement. It is also easy to access as nearly every potential customer has an internet access either at home or on their phone. Online feedback from questionnaire can be easily recorded and reused as an evidence as well. Disadvantages of web-based communication are dangers of actually using the internet such as hackers and viruses. It’s also providing less information to the customer rather than have a face to face meeting. Also not everyone has an internet access and they will not be able to see the website. However as I said before nearly everyone uses internet on a daily basis. Also older people tend to not use the internet as they don’t know how to use it and how to research any information from the website.