Communication Statistics 2024

Communication is key to business success – and yet so many people struggle with it. To get a clearer picture of how businesses, teams and individuals communicate at work, we surveyed 402 people in late 2023 – asking them about communication, productivity, software and more.

Section 1: How do businesses communicate?

We wanted to find out which communication tools are used by businesses – when working internally, and with clients.

With clients…

Email remains the most widely used tool for client communication, although it’s experienced a fall from last year’s figure. Whereas 62% of people primarily used email last year, this has now fallen to 55%.

55% of people communicate with their clients using email in 2024.

The number of people primarily using a project management tool to communicate with clients has grown from 11% in 2023 to 19% in 2024.

11% of people communicate with their clients using online chat tools (like Slack) in 2024.

Fewer people primarily communicate with their clients via phone, but there has been a very slight increase in face-to-face communication.

With co-workers…

Email is the most widely used way people choose to communicate with their colleagues in 2024.

– but only just!

31% of people say they communicate with their colleagues primarily by email. This is the same number as in 2023.

This is closely followed by 26% who use an online chat tool such as Slack – falling from 30% last year.

24% use a project management tool, up significantly from 15% 12 months ago.

7% primarily communicate by phone (unchanged from last year) while the number of people who primarily communicate face-to-face has fallen from 7% to 3%.

10% responded that they use a tool outside this list – with a variety of tools including Notion, WhatsApp, Google Meet and Zoom being mentioned.

Section 2: Remote work

The pandemic changed the world of work, perhaps forever. We wanted to understand how, and where, our respondents do their work.

The biggest section of our respondents are now back in the office full time…

36% of people say they’re office-based 5 days per week. A combined 44% of people mix their time between remote and office work, and 20% work fully remotely.

This is a huge swing from our findings last year. Back then, we found that 44% of people were fully remote – with just 18% fully office based – and the remainder mixing the two.

Section 3: An increasing challenge?

In this section we looked to find out how things are changing – and the steps businesses are taking to meet the challenge.

30% of people believe communication with clients and co-workers has become more of a challenge in the past 12 months.

48% say the challenge is about the same, and just 23% believe things have got easier.

75% of people have adopted a new tool to help them better meet their business communication challenges in the past 12 months.

Section 4: Time wasted in meetings

We wanted to find out how many people felt they wasted time in meetings.

65% of people feel they regularly waste time in meetings – an increase from 60% last year.

Section 5: The cost of poor communication

Where communication IS poor – we wanted to understand the ways in which this is felt within businesses.

70% of people say they’ve personally wasted time as a result of communication issues in their business. (Up from 68% last year.)

55% of people have missed messages as a result of communication issues in their business. (Up from 53% last year.)

53% of people have suffered from burnout, stress and fatigue as a result of communication issues in their business. (A significant jump from 42% last year.)

36% of people have experienced lost and missing files as a result of communication issues in their business. (Up by 1% from last year.)

28% of people have had a poor customer experience as a result of communication issues in their business. (Down from 30% last year.)

12% of people have lost customers to competitors as a result of communication issues in their business. (Unchanged from last year.)

12% of businesses have lost employees as a result of communication issues in their business. (Up from 10% last year.)

Section 6: How companies rate their performance

In this section, we wanted to find out how employees and managers rank the businesses they work for in terms of three key qualities: efficiency, communication and organisation.

Efficiency

Just 6% of businesses rate their efficiency as ‘excellent.’

A significant majority of businesses (46%) believe their efficiency levels are ‘average’ with only 14% combined believing they are ‘below average’ and 3% admitting they are ‘poor.’ (‘Below average’ saw a significant jump when comparing this data to last year’s.)

Communication

When it comes to communication, over a third of businesses rate their performance as either ‘excellent’ (9%) or ‘above average (29%).

A little under half of businesses describe their communication as ‘average’ while a combined 16% say they’re ‘below average’ or ‘poor.’

Organisation

When asked to evaluate how organised they are, the data follows a familiar pattern.

A healthy majority describe their organisation levels as ‘average,’ while…

Over a third of businesses describe their performance as ‘above average’ or ‘excellent.’

Brands seem to feel more organised than they did last year, with 32% of teams describing their organisation as ‘above average.’ (up from 25% last year)

Section 7: How customers feel

We looked to find out how communication manifests itself within the customer experience – and how customers feel about the businesses they deal with.

98% of people say it’s important that a business communicates effectively with them as a customer.

94% of people feel the businesses they buy from have room for improvement when it comes to effective communication and project management.

95% of people say it’s important they can find out where things are up to with their purchase or project – e.g. exact status and next deliverable.

And most tellingly…

66% of people say they’ve stopped dealing with a company and moved to a competitor due to poor business communication skills.

BUT THERE’S SOME GOOD NEWS…

40% of people feel the businesses they work with have improved their communication in the past 12 months, nearly double the number (22%) who feel the businesses they work with have got worse.

Section 8: The power of project management tools

We looked to understand the impact that the use of a project management tool can have within businesses.

58% of people say they have a good idea of what others in their team are working on at any given time – but this rises to 70% among people who use a project management tool to communicate with both clients and co-workers.

While 64% of people say they have a good understanding of where their projects are up to – this rises to 83% when they primarily use a project management tool to communicate with both their co-workers and clients.

77% of people who primarily use a project management tool to communicate with co-workers say it leads to improved internal communication. 74% say it leads to better internal efficiency, 64% say it delivers an increased rate of project success. 53% say it leads to improved client communication. 49% say it leads to a better customer experience, and 26% associate it with better employee wellbeing.

76% of people who primarily use a project management tool to communicate with clients say it leads to better internal efficiency. 73% say it improves the customer experience, 64% say it increases the rate of project success, and 33% say it leads to better employee wellbeing.

The power of project management tools: Other data points

Brands that primarily use a project management tool for client and co-worker communication are more than twice as likely to rate the way their business communicates as ‘excellent’.

Employees are 27% less likely to report burnout, stress and fatigue where they primarily use a PM tool to communicate with both clients and co-workers.

Brands that primarily use a project management tool for client and co-worker communication are more than twice as likely to rate their project efficiency as ‘excellent’.

64% of brands who use a project management tool to communicate with clients and co-workers rate their business as having ‘excellent’ or ‘above average’ efficiency levels – vs. 38% of those who don’t.

67% of brands who use a project management tool to communicate with clients and co-workers rate their business as having ‘excellent’ or ‘above average’ communication – vs. 38% of those who don’t.

70% of brands who use a project management tool to communicate with clients and co-workers rate their business as having ‘excellent’ or ‘above average’ organisation – vs. 39% of those who don’t.

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