You work at an advertising firm where a senior executive has suggested that advertising staff should rely more on e-mail to communicate with clients rather than frequently visiting them in person.The executive has even suggested that this proposal might increase creativity because clients could communicate their ideas to staff members more often than through personal visits.The reason for this recommendation is that it is expensive and time-consuming to visit clients.Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the idea of using e-mail rather than personal visits to interact with clients.Be sure that your answer considers emotional contagion, media richness and other factors related to these two communication channels.

E-mail tends to be most effective for coordinating work and sending well-defined information for decision making.Thus, advertising staff probably could rely more on e-mail to communicate with clients where personal meetings mainly transmitted well-defined information and coordinated work with the client.
However, e-mail would be ineffective at replacing personal meetings for three reasons.First, personal meetings are more effective at transmitting emotional contagion.When staff members feel enthusiastic about a new advertising campaign, their nonverbal cues transmit this enthusiasm to clients.In other words, clients may experience less emotional contagion when staff members rely more on e-mail to commute their proposals.
A second reason why e-mail would be ineffective at replacing personal meetings is that e-mail has a lower degree of media richness.It cannot transmit the richness and variety of information that is available through face-to-face contact.For example, staff members cannot receive subtle nonverbal communication from clients when proposals are transmitted through e-mail.The meaning of some messages may also be more easily misinterpreted through e-mail than through face-to-face meetings.
The third problem with replacing personal meetings with e-mail is that e-mail is less persuasive than face-to-face communication.E-mail represents a form of written communication.This medium is fine for transmitting technical details, but does not have the same influence as verbal communication in persuading the listener to accept your ideas.Thus, it is possible that clients would be less convinced about proposals communicated through e-mail than in face-to-face meetings.