Managerial communication is widely acknowledged as a cornerstone of organisational effectiveness, with listening, message-sending, and feedback skills forming some of its essential components. Yet, the precise role of message-sending skills in this triadic relationship remains contested. Earlier evidence across manufacturing and service industries highlighted message-sending as important but effective primarily when accompanied by the ability to deal with interference. More recently, in the manufacturing sector, message-sending did not independently mediate the link between listening and feedback, surfacing only in combination with interference-handling skills. Against this backdrop, the present study examines the retail industry, revealing that message-sending skills do mediate the relationship between listening and feedback, even in the absence of interference management. Using survey data from 289 retail employees, structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised mediation model. The results confirm a significant mediating role for message-sending, underscoring the context-specific nature of communication competencies. The study advances understanding of communication competence by demonstrating that the influence of message-sending varies across industries. The findings highlight the importance of communication training that is tailored to industry-specific dynamics, particularly in customer-facing sectors such as retail.