Closed-loop communication is a simple but effective technique used to avoid misunderstandings during the communication process. Here, the person receiving information repeats it back to the sender to ensure they have understood the message correctly.
Understanding closed-loop communication
Closed-loop communication describes a technique used by an individual to prevent misunderstandings.
In essence, closed-loop communication is a process of cross-checking communicated information for accuracy.
It is especially prevalent in clinical care contexts since no single medical discipline or specialty can meet all of a patient’s needs.
Here, the technique ensures that different teams can communicate with clarity and completeness and avoid making potentially life-threatening errors.
Closed-loop communication in business
Closed-loop communication is also effective in business as a way to ensure teams possess shared expectations, objectives, awareness, and plan execution.
Engineer, entrepreneur, and leader Jarie Bolander had this to say about the topic:
“In business, ‘closing the loop’ is akin to following up, checking in, or closing the deal. The term comes from control systems where they close the control loop in order for the system remain stable.”
When business systems are unstable, employees find themselves in an all-too-familiar scenario.
This occurs when we rely on someone to do something, but for whatever reason, that person either ignored us, forgets about it, or does the wrong thing entirely.
To ensure the loop is closed every time, here are some helpful tips:
Set clear objectives
Think about what needs to be done and craft an implementation plan that makes sense. If a task is time-sensitive, make it known!
Listen carefully
To verify that your message is resonating with the audience in the way you intended, listen carefully to how they explain it.
Establish follow-up points
Many avoid touching base with a co-worker because it is uncomfortable, awkward, or inconvenient.
However, it’s important to establish follow-up points to ensure the task is completed satisfactorily.
These points include mutual deadlines, providing feedback before a certain date, or providing status updates for material changes such as closing a deal or hitting a milestone.
Model desirable behavior
Employees who expect others to promptly follow up on their actions should set the tone and model the behavior themselves.
This shows that they understand the importance of closing the loop and are willing to create awareness to ensure the technique is adopted by others.
Closed-loop customer experience management
Businesses can also draw inspiration from closed-loop communication to respond directly to poor customer feedback and resolve complaints so that the customer remains loyal.
Others use a similar technique to follow up with promoters, encouraging them to recommend the product or service to a friend or join a customer advocacy program.
Nevertheless, in the case of the former scenario, a closed-loop customer feedback system has two primary components:
Ticketing
The alert system that creates a request in the system when there is an unhappy customer.
The team interested in resolving poor feedback can filter comments such that only negative or neutral NPS scores enter the system, for example.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of the ability of a product or service to attract word-of-mouth advertising. NPS is a crucial part of any marketingstrategy since attracting and then retaining customers means they are more likely to recommend a business to others.
Case management system
This enables the customer success team to track ticket progress and work with the customer until the matter has been resolved.
Importantly and in keeping with closed-loop communication, all members of staff remain in the loop and have access to the ticket’s history at all times.
Key takeaways
Closed-loop communication describes a technique used by an individual to prevent misunderstandings. In essence, it is a process of cross-checking communicated information for accuracy.
Closed-loop communication is also effective in business as a way to ensure teams possess shared expectations, objectives, awareness, and plan execution. This can be achieved via setting clear objectives, listening carefully, modeling desirable behavior, and establishing follow-up points.
Customer success teams can also use closed-loop communication to resolve customer complaints or encourage promoters to take some form of desirable action.
The Aristotle model of communication is a linear model with a focus on public speaking. The Aristotle model of communication was developed by Greek philosopher and orator Aristotle, who proposed the linear model to demonstrate the importance of the speaker and their audience during communication.
The linear model of communication is a relatively simplistic model envisaging a process in which a sender encodes and transmits a message that is received and decoded by a recipient. The linear model of communication suggests communication moves in one direction only. The sender transmits a message to the receiver, but the receiver does not transmit a response or provide feedback to the sender.
Berlo’s SMCR model was created by American communication theorist David Berlo in 1960, who expanded the Shannon-Weaver model of communication into clear and distinct parts. Berlo’s SMCR model is a one-way or linear communication framework based on the Shannon-Weaver communication model.
Closed-loop communication is a simple but effective technique used to avoid misunderstandings during the communication process. Here, the person receiving information repeats it back to the sender to ensure they have understood the message correctly.
The helical model of communication is a framework inspired by the three-dimensional spring-like curve of a helix. It argues communication is cyclical, continuous, non-repetitive, accumulative, and influenced by time and experience.
Grapevine communication describes informal, unstructured workplace dialogue between employees and superiors. It was first described in the early 1800s after someone observed that the appearance of telegraph wires strung between transmission poles resembled a grapevine.
The Lasswell communication model is a linear framework for explaining the communication process through segmentation. Lasswell proposed media propaganda performs three social functions: surveillance, correlation, and transmission. Lasswell believed the media could impact what viewers believed about the information presented.
Modus tollens is a deductive argument form and a rule of inference used to make conclusions of arguments and sets of arguments. Modus tollens argues that if P is true then Q is also true. However, P is false. Therefore Q is also false. Modus tollens as an inference rule dates back to late antiquity where it was taught as part of Aristotelian logic. The first person to describe the rule in detail was Theophrastus, successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school.
The five canons of rhetoric were first organized by Roman philosopher Cicero in his treatise De Inventione in around 84 BC. Some 150 years later, Roman rhetorician Quintilian explored each of the five canons in more depth as part of his 12-volume textbook entitled Institutio Oratoria. The work helped the five canons become a major component of rhetorical education well into the medieval period. The five canons of rhetoric comprise a system for understanding powerful and effective communication.
A communication strategy framework clarifies how businesses should communicate with their employees, investors, customers, and suppliers. Some of the key elements of an effective communication strategy move around purpose, background, objectives, target audience, messaging, and approach.
Noise is any factor that interferes with or impedes effective communication between a sender and receiver. When noise disrupts the communication process or prevents the transmission of information, it is said to be communication noise.
The 7Cs of communication is a set of guiding principles on effective communication skills in business, moving around seven principles for effective business communication: clear, concise, concrete, correct, complete, coherent, and courteous.
The transactional model of communication describes communication as a two-way, interactive process within social, relational, and cultural contexts. The transactional model of communication is best exemplified by two models. Barnlund’s model describes communication as a complex, multi-layered process where the feedback from the sender becomes the message for the receiver. Dance’s helical model is another example, which suggests communication is continuous, dynamic, evolutionary, and non-linear.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
