Communicating Effectively Outside the Meeting Room

Because the Chinese value personal relationships, people prefer to do most business in person. However, with mobile phone use in China growing by leaps and bounds, getting in touch with the Chinese by phone is becoming an option. And other forms of electronic media, such as the Internet and text-messaging, are creating more opportunities to communicate with the Chinese, which is good for your business.

Using the telephone

People are doing more and more business on the telephone in China. Mobile phone use in China is skyrocketing. (In China, they prefer the term mobile phone to cellphone.) Mobile phone users in China now number close to 500 million, and around 50 million new mobile phone users are added each year in China.

Don’t work by phone on important business matters unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Reaching people in their offices

Reaching someone by the office telephone is difficult in China. Executives often aren’t around because they’re too busy in face-to-face meetings all day. Don’t be surprised if you don’t get through at all and the phone just continues to ring and ring.

Most senior Chinese businesspeople still rely on assistants to answer their telephones at the office. However, trying to reach your contact’s assistant isn’t easy, either. Get to know the office assistant — perhaps the assistant can give you a direct line to contact him or her if you have a problem.

Calling and using mobile phones

Calling mobile phones is the best way to get in touch with your business partners in China. Rarely do Chinese businesspeople turn off their mobile phones — even during business meetings! (You can set a good example by turning off your own phone.) If you know your contacts well, you can call them after business hours. Getting the mobile phone number of your Chinese business contacts, though, can be tricky. They usually have to know you pretty well.

Using your mobile phone in China may require you to make some changes to your phone if you don’t have international roaming services before you go to China. Call your mobile phone provider at least a month before you leave to find out whether you can unlock your phone for use in China. If you can unlock your phone, you can use the services of a Chinese telecom carrier at a very reasonable cost. You buy a set number of minutes and can buy both international and China roaming services.

Get the message: No voicemail Believe it or not, Chinese businesspeople don’t use voicemail. They don’t use it in the office. They don’t use it on their mobile phones. They don’t use it, period. When Chinese people call you, they want to talk to you. They don’t want to talk to your voicemail. So in China, you either get through to the person by phone or you don’t — but you can’t leave a recorded message. Most Chinese people don’t have voicemail systems at work or on their mobile phone. If you can’t reach your contact by phone, send a text message (SMS) instead of continuing to call.

When you’re in China, you can easily purchase a pre-paid SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card (called a SIM Ka) with cash in any major city to make international and local calls through a Chinese telecom company. This way is cheaper and easier than roaming. You can purchase a SIM card at convenience stores, newspaper stands, and many other places. Be sure that you have text messaging (SMS) service, too.

SMS and text messaging

China accounts for about half of text messages, or Short Message Service (SMS) messages, sent globally. About 25 billion text messages are sent each month in China. Over the Chinese New Year week-long holiday, more than 12 billion text messages were sent. No wonder some people call China the “thumb economy”!

Young people in particular like sending SMS messages because it’s much cheaper than making a call. Sending an SMS message in China costs about US$0.01.

Many of your contacts may communicate with you by SMS in China. Where you may expect to receive a voicemail or mobile phone call, you’ll likely get a text message instead. Your Chinese contacts can send text messages in both Chinese and English.

Faxing

Using a fax to communicate with Chinese businesspeople is usually pretty reliable. Most large businesses have dedicated fax machines to handle inbound and outbound faxes. Some companies are more organized than others, so faxing documents to China may be more hit-or-miss than what you’re used to. Make sure that you follow up with your Chinese contacts to see whether they’ve received your fax.

Small- and medium-sized companies may have a phone that also does double duty as the fax. If the phone number is the same as the fax, you may need to tell your Chinese contacts to make sure the fax machine is on.

E-mailing and the Internet

China has more than 100 million Internet users. About 80 percent of China’s Internet users are under the age of 35 with a large number of them being students. Still, although e-mail is popular among Chinese Internet users, the mobile phone is the emperor!

With so much focus on personal interactions, China’s use of e-mail is more limited than elsewhere (especially for older Chinese, who are more comfortable doing business face-to-face and sending documents by fax). You can’t convey body language and tone of voice, so when communicating by e-mail, be especially careful to keep the big words and jargon to a minimum.

You can usually get high-speed Internet access from your hotel either in your room or at the business center without a problem, so bring along your laptop to stay connected. Many Western restaurants offer free wireless Internet access as well. Internet cafes do exist, but being in your hotel is a lot more comfortable (and usually much less smoky). The Coffee Bean offers free wireless Internet access in its China stores; Starbucks requires users to buy a pre-paid card to use wireless.

Internet regulations in China may prevent you from accessing certain Web sites (for instance, you won’t be able to access Wikipedia), which should have little effect on your day-to-day business dealings in China. Your e-mail communication to and from your office and locally in China shouldn’t be a problem.