A Review of Factors Influencing Business Communication Channels During Pandemic

Effective communication is key in business to improve performance. A key success factor in achieving communication effectiveness is the channel selection made by the business. When channels are effectively applied, it results in a higher degree of engagement which then boosts productivity and through that leads to business success. Social distancing strategies during the Covid-19 crisis create barriers to communication. Businesses would need to plan on the best communication channels in times of crisis for continuing business and should a similar crisis recur. This paper examines the available evidence on the most used communication channel by businesses during the pandemic crisis year 2020 and examines the factors influencing the choice. We conducted a literature review, searching related articles from Scopus and Web of Science databases and the Google Scholar search engine. The review showed that the most used communication channel is digital platforms namely email, social media, websites, and television. We identified three categories of factors influencing business communication channel choice: (1) Information effectiveness; (2) Business networking; and (3) User literacy. Given the changing preference of people along with the evolving technology, we hope to offer some insight for a better plan of communication that would enhance the effectiveness of business communication to have a high-quality business. study indicates that the consumers have more trust and thus greater behavioral intention when organizations share product information face-to-face rather than on social media leading them to buy the product despite the crisis. During the epidemic, many small essential and non-essential businesses found ways to remain open as they place a strong emphasis on the “personal touch” approach to business which is to stay connected with the customers.


Introduction
People stay in quality relationships through communication. In communication, there is always an exchange of something informative such as ideas, documents, problems, solutions, or views whenever two or more individuals interact (Theory of Communication, 1970). The pace of today's business means people are communicating information more than ever before. Doing business internationally leverages a new global multicultural workplace, global virtual teams, and advances in communication technology (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). The evolving technology offers new multiple modes through which people can communicate. Understanding what makes and breaks effective communication is challenging and it is at the core of any modern business operation to preserve the relationship. study indicates that the consumers have more trust and thus greater behavioral intention when organizations share product information face-to-face rather than on social media leading them to buy the product despite the crisis. During the epidemic, many small essential and non-essential businesses found ways to remain open as they place a strong emphasis on the "personal touch" approach to business which is to stay connected with the customers. That comes with face-to-face communication (Thambusamy & Bekirogullari, 2020). Some industries such as those providing food services, private care services, legal services, and retail-related businesses are more unlikely to change in their communication mode as they are more intensive in face-to-face interaction despite the pandemic (Avdiu & Nayyar, 2020).
However, living with Covid-19 for an uncertain time now urges the call for a new effective communication mode. Face-to-face communication which offers 'social presence' would not be the preferred platform in this pandemic environment. Working remotely increases the risks of wrong information being delivered and issues on ethics. The credibility of messages or information is thus depending on the communication channels used to deliver them in times of crisis. Numerous studies suggested alternative communication methods to face-to-face used by businesses to communicate during the recent health crisis period to ensure the uninterrupted flow of their operations. Remote workings have led to interacting with many mediums that are connected to the Internet (Faqihi et al., 2020). Most scholars of crisis communication have identified social media as the crisis communication channel (Obembe et al., 2021). Some papers studied how communication helps educate the community about health and safety for a stronger community during the pandemic. For effective communication, television, the Internet, radio, newspapers, friends, and neighbors are used by the authority to transmit information aimed at immigrants because they are not proficient with the native language, and the fact that there is an increase in the number of Covid reported cases among them. Studies in business settings concentrated on designing communication strategies for company survival beyond the Pandemic. Lee (2022) studied how an organization's communication affects public responses during the Pandemic. The result of the study indicates that the consumers have more trust and thus greater behavioral intention when organizations share product information face-to-face rather than on social media leading them to buy the product despite the crisis. Studies on health care settings noted that doctors spend more time telecommunicating than face-to-face communication during an office visit in gathering data about patients during Covid 19 restrictions. Patients rated telehealth visit quality as better than Face-To-Face (Drossman et al., 2021). Text messaging apps are also used to facilitate communication between doctors and multiple older patients at a time during the pandemic (Goldberg et al., 2022). Coman et al (2022) did a survey on other professionals and the study highlighted a new role of professional accountants as there is a restriction to traditional face-to-face communication between economic players due to the current health crisis. When asked which specific ITrelated abilities are highly valued for interaction amongst the corporate players and the impact of the crisis, the respondents ranked first communication-facilitating technologies like WhatsApp and email. Similarly concurred in the study of auditor-client relationships where communications are mostly via emails (Albitar et al., 2021). A study in retail banking sectors highlighted a downward trend in customers' visits to the bank during the Pandemic. Due to the important use of cash, the percentage of consumption of online banking services during the Pandemic is greater but with a little upward trend as it was widely used even prior to the Pandemic (Baicu et al., 2020). In Terason et al (2022), virtual meetings are the main method channel to their job performance, there will then be greater acceptance for choosing the channel.

Business Networking
A study during the first lockdown in Germany noted that people prefer communicating via channels where they can feel socially connected (Kluck et al., 2021). They experienced closeness when there is a greater bandwidth of the channels. In Goldberg et al (2022), the decision to encourage telehealth communication has some relation to the law, flexibility, and literacy of people. Deregulation or relaxation of certain policies under the Health Act such as waiver of rules that allow doctors to use personal mobiles to face time with patients would reduce the technological barrier. The need to maintain a human touch with clients such as doing live chat or video calls is also highlighted by Baicu et al (2020), who studies the impact of pandemics on consumer behavior in internet banking services. Besides usefulness and ease of use, trust, communication, and education about technology have a positive correlation with the changing attitude of users toward the use of digital channels. Similarly, Diwanji et al (2020) also mentioned that a higherquality channel is one where users can gain more knowledge and experience from the channel. The analysis of a survey done in the tourism field recognized five factors influencing the use of digital technology by tourism providers: their characteristics, attitudes, perception toward digitalization, Covid-19, and future development trends of the global tourism industry (Melovic et al., 2022). Furthermore, Zhang et al (2020) studied the relationship between emotion and communication in disseminating information during an emergency. Besides it being instant and concise, social media such as Twitter is the preferred channel choice as the emotion contained in the message induces attraction and it can be used as one of the elements to increase information sharing behavior in an emergency. Coman et al (2022) obtained responses from professional accountants and they found that the decision to go digital is dependent on both the human element and the availability of telecommunication resources and infrastructure. Bringing back business to the next normal is expected by all especially the young professionals thus, the willingness to expand to digital channels.

User Literacy
In media broadcast overview, the migration of corporate communication to the digital world is purposely to try to get closer to the new habits and media consumed by audiences at present (Hidalgo-Mari et al., 2022). The new normality of the social mitigation strategy also causes a continuous limitation on the physical interaction between professional accountants and entrepreneurs and concerned third parties. For regular corporate financial reporting, especially during uncertain situations, disclosing frequent ad-hoc financial information via social media could engage in more dialogic communication with the stakeholders besides the annual report as the main communication channel (Crovini et al., 2022). Digital illiteracy could also hinder the choice of modern channels for communicating as low literacy would mean low-income or older persons and those living in rural areas with the shortage of IT facilities. This is also mentioned in the study by Koval et al (2022) that when communicating information, it is important to understand people of different cultures and their diverse linguistic backgrounds as non-verbal communication can be a more effective channel. Some other studies made the point that their options for communication channels are based on the combined factors of human touchpoints, knowledge, and perceptions. When

Methodology
We reviewed, summarizing the body of literature covering any aspect of communication channel and looking at what influences people's channel preferences. We employed a thorough search strategy using the terms "communication channels" and "pandemics". We expand further by reviewing articles with the following keyword search: communication AND channel OR mode OR type AND of AND communication AND during AND crisis OR pandemic OR Covid 19. We reviewed literature from two electronic databases (Scopus and Web of Science) and the Google Scholar search engine published from 2020 -2022. This time frame was selected due to the pandemic crisis year. The articles selected are restricted to Journal Articles, those available online and must be full texts and the search strategy was specific to business and industry settings.

Figure 1: Factors that influence the choices of business communication channel
Communication had become more challenging especially throughout the pandemic years, particularly for business as everyone is forced to maintain social distance and is required to work remotely. From the literature, we found out that during the pandemic, the most used choice of communication channels is digital platforms such as email, social media, websites as well as television (Diwanji et al., 2020;Geni et al., 2021;Melovic et al., 2022). Businesses' communication channels can be influenced by certain factors which are information effectiveness, business networking, and user literacy. These factors will influence the likelihood of using digital platforms or traditional face-to-face interaction. However, during the pandemic years, the preferred communication channel is a digital platform as there are barriers to the locality of people to meet one another (Runfola et al., 2021). The effectiveness of business information flow undeniably influences the choices of the communication channel. It includes the richness, usefulness, and availability of information being communicated that subsequently leads to a better choice of the communication channel. Another factor that influences the business communication channel is business networking which refers to the trust between the users and the quality of the information being conveyed. Furthermore, user literacy on the digital platform also influences the preferred communication channel.

Conclusion
The repercussions of Covid-19 led firms to pivot and embrace new modes of communication in order to stay in business and be more resilient. A resilient business can weather storms and adapt to change more easily. Digital resilience is important in a competitive and constantly changing business environment. According to the findings, digital platforms such as email, social media, websites, and television are the most often utilized communication channels chosen by businesses. As such businesses will be better prepared for future crises if they have an effective communication plan that leverages technology. Furthermore there are three