5 Ways to Improve Messaging with Remote Teams
Hello, I’m Yuriy, a remote software engineer for JOOR working in Russia.
The JOOR team is spread across multiple countries, cities, and time zones, but we’re able to work together on a daily basis. Being aware of the fact that “remote” adds an extra level of complexity to team communications, we’re constantly striving to improve the ways we interact with each other.
This blog post is about one aspect of remote communication that is often overlooked: messaging. With remote teams, messaging tools like email or Slack can be critical to doing steady, real-time communication. In this blog post, I gathered mistakes with messaging that can be easily avoided. These improvements are general enough so that they are not limited to the tech field or to a particular messenger, and work just as well in everyday chatting, whether your colleague is sitting next to you or on the other side of the globe.
1. Get straight to the point
Michael wants to find out if Sophia has started to work on a feature. He sends a friendly message to start a conversation. Michael wants to find out about the status of the feature during the conversation. But he doesn’t get a response instantly, because Sophia is away from her computer at the moment.
Here’s an example:
Michael: Hey Sophia, are you there?orMichael: Hey Sophia, how are you? (with the intention to ask a follow up questions after Sophia's response)orMichael: Hello Sophia!
Michael starts a conversation as he would probably do if Sophia was in front of him. This is an effort to start a synchronous conversation, which can happen remotely as well. But often there are delays in responses in such conversations. For instance, Sophia might be focusing on something else and cannot be interrupted for a conversation right now. Sophia might also be out of the office, commuting, taking a break or even sleeping. The more urgent Michael’s question is, the more frustrated he becomes with response delays (depending on the time difference). Sophia might also be frustrated because she can’t respond right away, but she sees that her colleague is looking for her help and she has to guess what it’s about.
We can improve this conversation by changing the perception that remote communication has to be synchronous — it doesn’t need to mimic a conversation that we would have if we were sitting next to each other.
Recommended messaging options:
Michael: Hey Sophia, how are you? I’m trying to figure out if we have started this feature, are you working on it?Michael: Hey Sophia, are you working on the feature?Michael: Hello Sophia, have you started on the feature?
A simple “Yes”, “No, will start in 2 hours”, “Yes, almost done actually” from Sophia would answer Michael’s question. It also gives Sophia a lot of flexibility. She might respond from her mobile phone even if she’s away from her computer, or she can respond without losing her focus.
When sending messages to your remote colleagues, getting straight to the point in the first message will increase the probability of getting a quicker response, since responding to messages with a clear context usually doesn’t require a lot of time.
2. Short but immediate feedback to sender
Anthony wants to ask his remote colleague, Olivia, to do something. He writes Olivia, doesn’t get a response, but Olivia actually saw the message and started doing the task. Because Anthony didn’t get a response, he might then give this task to someone else and end up with duplicated work.
Here is an example: Anthony found a production bug and wants Olivia to fix it.
Anthony: Hey Olivia, how is it going? We’ve found a production bug — can you have a look please?(...after 2 hours)Olivia: Hey Anthony, I’m fine, thank you! How are you?Olivia: Sure, I just pushed the fix for the bug.
In this case, Olivia saw the message and actually spent those 2 hours fixing the bug right away. When senders don’t get any feedback, especially in cases when waiting is not an option, they need to look into alternatives. So, there is a risk that Anthony asks another engineer to fix the bug because he didn’t receive an answer from Olivia, which results in duplicated work.
A better interaction on Olivia’s part might look like:
Anthony: Hey Olivia, how is it going? We’ve found a production bug — can you have a look please?Olivia: Hey Anthony, I'm well, thanks! I think we need to add one more check to fix this bug, I’ll do it now.Anthony: Awesome! Thank you, Olivia.(...after 2 hours)Olivia: The bug is fixed!
When receiving a message from your colleagues, immediate feedback ensures that they know you’ve received their message and you’re handling. This is particularly important in remote communication because your colleagues cannot see that you have started the task or nodded to indicate that you have understood it.
3. Quick calls instead of long messaging
Matthew wants to plan something big and impactful that involves many people and a lot of communication. So he writes in a public chat channel and starts a long discussion about it.
Example: Matthew wants to plan extra regression testing due to an upgrade of the infrastructure.
Matthew: Hey folks, as you know, we recently upgraded one of our libraries. We would like to do extra regression testing because this upgrade touches core functions of our platform. How can we arrange it?Sofia: Sure thing, when do we plan to release this?Joseph: We have QAs available for this, but some of them might be partially busy with automation testing, so we should take that into account.(...long discussion proceeds)
This is an open conversation and it might last for hours requiring time of a group of people that chat synchronously. When a question is an open question, starting a quick call or even scheduling a meeting might be a good idea to avoid long typing, starting and stopping of discussion.
Overall, quick calls work perfectly when there’s no need to save messaging history for future reference, and are better practice for more effectively planning out tasks and responsibilities.
Jumping on a call instead of typing might be helpful in the following situations:
- Discussing schedules
- Planning big changes
- A topic is broad and opened
- A conversation takes too long
- Discussing something personal
- Demonstrating something
- Conversations that might take an emotional turn
Chat discussions may be more productive than quick phone calls in the following situations:
- Making announcements
- Brainstorming ideas on a specified task
- Asking to do something with clearly defined scope and further actions
- Clarifying something small
When you take part in a conversation that you think might be handled better over a call, it doesn’t hurt to offer.
4. Explicitly confirm that you read a response
Mia wants to find out about the status of a project. So, she sends Andrew a question. Andrew responds in detail and Mia receives the message, but she doesn’t respond. Therefore, Andrew is not sure if his message is clear enough or if it even got through.
The first example:
Mia: Hey Andrew, where are we with our project?Andrew: Hey Mia, actually we pushed it pretty far, we did 80% of planned requirements, which included the following...(...No response from Mia)
In this example, Mia received the status update but didn’t respond to Andrew, and now Andrew doesn’t know whether he provided sufficient details or whether Mia even received his message. He might spend time tracking down Mia to relay the message again, or he might worry that Mia is still working under an assumption that progress hasn’t been made on his project, or maybe he worries she’s asking because the requirements or deadline have changed.
In a second example, Andrew wants to make an announcement. He writes a message, but doesn’t receive a response, so he is not sure if his colleagues received the message.
Andrew: Hey folks, I will miss our meeting today due to train delays.(...No answer)
Andrew is not sure if his colleagues saw the message and worries they will be surprised due to his absence.
If Andrew receives a small confirmation, he is sure that his messages or announcements are received clearly. An improved version of these exchanges that takes advantage of confirmations might look like the following:
Mia: Hey Andrew, where are we with our project?Andrew: Hey Mia, actually we’ve pushed it pretty far! We did 80% of planned requirements, which includes the following...Mia: Thanks! That’s more than I needed.
And the second example:
Andrew: Hey folks, I will miss our meeting today due to train delays.Mia: :thumbsup:
When receiving messages, a simple confirmation gives your colleagues a signal that a message or an announcement was received and no further help is needed. A simple “ok, thanks” or an emoji provides enough signal with little effort.
5. Edit for typos
Typos happen all over the web. Sometimes they are harmless, but sometimes a typo might change the whole meaning of a message. Since some messages might have a business impact and can referred back to later, we should ensure they’re free from typos or errors.
Example: Lily wanted to say that the text should not go into another document but she missed “not”, because she was typing quickly.
Lily: I think this should go to another document because (...)Modern messaging tools provide many options for editing your text, even after it’s been sent. We can remove typos as well as add details or clarification to messages, and there are integrated typo checkers too. You might even try deleting some irrelevant messages from the history to reduce confusion.
For a team that has remote workers, it is important to recognize that remote communication is different from synchronous, face-to-face dialogue. Remote communication can exchange the same information in a more effective way! The important part is creating this vocabulary and spreading the lessons learned. Fortunately, sometimes those actions are as simple as sending back a single emoji 👍
Like what you’re reading? Interested in learning more about working at JOOR, the world’s largest digital wholesale marketplace? We’re hiring! Check out https://jooraccess.com/careers.

