The Ultimate Guide to Communication in Construction

Why Is Communication in Construction So Challenging?

Communication in construction involves different stakeholders, including architects, contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers. Each party must meet separate goals, perform different responsibilities, and utilize their own communication methods. As a result, miscommunication easily occurs.

Let's break down the core reasons for these communication challenges.

• Fragmented teams: Construction projects generally involve teams working from both the field and the office. The office team handles the planning, project management, and purchases, and the field team focuses on execution. 

Without a unified communication platform, gaps can appear between both teams, leading to misunderstandings about project requirements or progress status.

• Multiple stakeholders & trades: A project can include different parties like clients, contractors, subcontractors, architects, and engineers. Coordinating everyone can be tough because each group has its own workflows, priorities, and terminologies. 

• Reliance on outdated methods: A lot of construction teams still communicate via handwritten notes, phone calls, and texts. These communication modes are ineffective because they fragment key details into disconnected silos. 

• Fast-paced, high-pressure environments: Construction sites are often fast-paced. Decisions can be made in the blink of an eye, sometimes leaving some parties in the dark.

What Is the Cost of Poor Communication in Construction?

Poor communication in construction can result in reworks and delays. Safety incidents, budget overruns, and reduced productivity are other results of poor communication. 

• Rework and delays: When stakeholders don’t share updates in time, teams can end up building from outdated plans, resulting in mistakes. For example, the team may have already poured concrete for a slab, only to find out the spec changed the day before. This mistake and others like it set the schedule back days and cost thousands to fix.

• Safety risks: If workers aren't clear on instructions or guidelines, they may operate machinery improperly, use incorrect materials, or skip important safety protocols. This can lead to workplace accidents. 

• Budget overruns: Miscommunications can cause teams to order the wrong material. A site lead might order the wrong HVAC units because the architect’s revision was shared via email but never logged in the central platform, triggering replacement costs and project delays.

• Client dissatisfaction: Ineffective communication channels can affect job outcomes and result in dissatisfied clients due to unmet expectations. For example, a client might show up expecting finished interiors only to find drywall just going up. This can negatively impact the relationship between the client and the team. 

• Lost productivity: When the communication between the field and the office breaks down, crews may spend the whole work day on a task they didn’t know had changed. This causes them to spend extra hours redoing the task, leading to low productivity and decreased morale.

How Can Better Communication Improve Your Bottom Line?

When teams communicate better, you minimize misunderstandings, and everyone stays on the same page regarding project specifics. This helps to grow your construction business. 

Below are other ways effective communication can improve your bottom line.

• Faster job completion: When team members understand instructions, they perform their tasks faster and with confidence.

• Fewer mistakes and disputes: Mistakes are less likely to happen when team members understand the job specifications. Everyone gains access to the same information, making it easier to clarify details and receive updates on any changes.

• Stronger team morale: Effective communication channels help workers understand their roles, goals, and expectations. This lets them know how their contributions fit into the bigger picture, making them more motivated and engaged in their work.

• Higher customer satisfaction: Customers want regular updates, such as when framing starts or rough-ins are complete, so they can track progress and feel confident things are on schedule. Proactive communication also gives them the chance to raise concerns early, before the project reaches a phase where the issue is irreversible. When clients feel heard and informed, they’re more likely to stay loyal, recommend your services, and leave positive reviews.

What Are the Key Elements of Effective Communication in Construction?

Ask any construction team that communicates effectively about how they do it, and they’ll tell you it didn't happen by accident. 

Rather, effective communication is a byproduct of the purposeful structure and elements they’ve put in place. 

These include:

1. Clear roles and responsibilities

To prevent misunderstandings, every stakeholder, from project managers to site workers, must know who does what and their role in the success of the project.

This also ensures accountability and makes it easy to know who to hold responsible if there’s a delay in the completion of a certain task.

You can use a project management tool like ServiceTitan to streamline this process. 

ServiceTitan’s Field Service App provides a centralized platform where you can assign, track, and document tasks. You can create and assign specific jobs to individuals, whether in the office or out in the field, so everyone knows the exact job they're responsible for. 

ServiceTitan makes the job-tracking process easier and more straightforward by providing real-time updates and detailed task tracking at every stage of the project. With this, techs can see assigned tasks along with all relevant details, while managers can monitor progress and spot delays.

Project managers can also include instructions for carrying out the task in the description box and set priority levels. This way, field teams execute assigned tasks to the manager’s satisfaction and on time so as not to delay the overall project.

2. Standardized processes and protocols

Defining the procedures for performing core construction tasks eliminates ambiguity about how certain things are to be done.

It also ensures everyone knows when a task is correctly completed, minimizing conflicts caused by misaligned expectations.

To standardize processes, consider using ServiceTitan's Construction Management App. With it, you can keep templates and design custom workflows that explain how specific tasks, like creating change orders, should be done. 

These documents are stored in the cloud, so relevant stakeholders can access them from the office on their PC or on the go from their mobile device.

To ensure field teams follow the protocols, you can create digital forms and set them to appear immediately after onsite workers complete specific actions.

For example, let's say per your company’s quality assurance protocol, plumbers are supposed to confirm specific details immediately after completing rough-ins.

You can design a checklist that pops up immediately after plumbers complete the rough-in process, requiring them to confirm that the correct pipe materials were used, drain slopes are up to code, etc.

Once field teams confirm they've done all that, ServiceTitan immediately notifies supervisors and office staff so they can visit the job site and confirm the job was done correctly before the crew can move to the next stage.

Workers can adhere to your protocols and supervisors can catch issues before it's too late.

3. Real-time updates from the field

Teams that communicate effectively find ways to bridge the gap between the field and the office. Once something happens in the field, like when customers approve equipment installations, back-office staff are immediately notified.

Records remain updated, and everyone stays on the same page. It also helps teams to:

• Promptly report issues in the field.

• Request materials early to cut down lead times.

• Stay aligned with customers’ financials so their records are up to date to the minute. 

Using clipboards, phone calls, and manual data entry, it’s hard (impossible even) to achieve the seamless communication loop described above, where field updates instantly reflect in office records.

Customer success teams must wait until field techs return to update customer records. Field teams may misunderstand details shared over the phone. And office records always lag behind. 

ServiceTitan’s Field Service App prevents such issues by connecting the field with the office. Because of the tool’s cloud nature, back office staff can view every form completed, photo uploaded, or transaction completed in the field in real time.

They can also track the team’s real-time location and job progress. These details help them keep customers updated about when the construction crew will be arriving and the stage they currently are in the project. 

To further connect teams, ServiceTitan’s smart alert feature notifies office staff whenever there’s a change in the field, like when a change order is created, specific tools are added to invoices, or field crews arrive at or pause a job.

4. Centralized documentation

Centralized documentation ensures everyone uses a single source of truth to reference throughout the project, reducing errors and unnecessary rework.

ServiceTitan helps you centralize all documents—change orders, forms, and process checklists—in one location. Everyone can access the information they need from anywhere, at any time. 

5. Client communication and transparency

Maintaining open communication with clients throughout the construction project builds trust and confidence. 

Additionally, when customers are properly informed, they can approve changes and accept upsell offers promptly, preventing delays and endless back-and-forth.

To pull this off, you need a construction customer relationship management tool that connects with the tools you use for other business tasks. That’s exactly what ServiceTitan’s CRM offers.

With it, you can send appointment reminders to clients via email or text before a scheduled visit, reducing no-shows and signaling to customers that you’re working on their issue.

The platform also has a centralized portal where customers can access their service records and upcoming appointments without needing to call. They can also use the portal to settle invoices, schedule appointments, and download their financial records.

When customers need to report issues, give feedback, or reschedule appointments, they can send a text message directly from their personalized portal. These messages are automatically routed to the job board. Dispatchers and customer support staff can then respond without having to switch between screens.

By maintaining an open line of communication with customers, you grow brand loyalty and trust, potentially attracting organic referrals.

6. Team collaboration and feedback loops

Construction is a team effort. When feedback flows freely between team members, problems are solved faster, and misunderstandings are reduced.

With ServiceTitan software, project managers can message or call team members from the dispatch board. 

Once they click on a tech’s profile picture or name, a harbinger menu pops out. They can then select the medium they’d like to use to contact the worker. 

Top 5 Communication Best Practices for Construction Teams

Below are five best practices to help you improve your team communication and your project outcomes:

1. Hold daily huddles or briefings: Start every work day with a quick huddle to keep everyone aligned on tasks and priorities. Managers can use the opportunity to review progress, address issues, and clarify expectations for the day. Workers, on the other hand, can ask questions or raise complaints before work commences.

2. Prepare checklists and templates: Create checklists and templates for repetitive tasks such as creating invoices, recording change orders, and so on. This ensures consistency across the team and reduces the time spent on these tasks.

3. Encourage feedback from field crews: Keep the communication lines between the office and the field team open. Encourage them to share their challenges so you can identify potential risks and delays early before they get worse.

4. Document everything: Keep detailed records of agreements to maintain accountability and track project progress. You can also use them to defend yourself in lawsuits if needed.

5. Train staff on tools and expectations: Train your team members on how to use the communication tools you provide. You can direct them to external resources such as YouTube videos and written guides. Additionally, let them know the expectations for each project and their individual contributions.

It’s Your Turn Now

Use the strategies and methods provided above to improve communication in your organization. Remember to standardize processes, centralize key documents, and use a communication tool to keep all stakeholders updated in real time.

Finally, you can implement an effective communication platform like ServiceTitan to manage all your team and customer communication in a single platform.

Want to see how it works? Book a demo here.

ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution that helps construction companies manage communication. Our all-in-one platform serves organizations in roofing, plumbing, irrigation, electrical, and HVAC contractors across the country.