Businesses are increasingly shifting towards the virtual trend, as most business operations are now conducted online. Bookkeeping and budgeting are also often performed through popular online apps and tools. The low setup costs and environmental concerns have driven businesses to adopt the paperless office trend.
One of the major obstacles that a business owner faces when running a virtual company is the effective engagement of employees to boost productivity levels. According to Michael Watkins, author of The First 90 Days, “Communication on virtual teams is often less frequent and always is less rich than face-to-face interaction, which provides more contextual cues and information about emotional states — such as engagement or lack thereof. The only way to avoid the pitfalls is to be extremely clear and disciplined about how the team will communicate.”
Fortunately, technological advancements have eliminated various communication barriers that halt a company’s growth. We have compiled the best communication tools and messaging programs available online to help businesses establish strong Communication with their employees. Effective messaging programs allow you to keep all your communication with the team in one place.
Slack
Slack is one of the most popular team chat apps online. It was launched in 2013 by the same team that created Flikr. Since its launch, it has become one of the most popular group chat apps.
Slack offers exceptional chatting facilities and a unique tool known as Slackbot, which acts as a reminder. You can set any reminder on Slackbot. It provides users with customizability and flexibility so they can select their personalized themes. It hosts powerful emoticons that will add a lively feel to your conversations.
The Slackbot tool has led to bots popularity over the past few years. It allows users to start projects, approve invoices, and crunch numbers. Slack has recently introduced an option to turn an ordinary message into a mini-channel relating to one topic.
You can form multiple teams to separate office, reading, and other groups.
Furthermore, it allows you to invent your chatbots through its integrations. It works on iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and Mac and costs around $8 per month.
HipChat
HipChat is a popular messaging program that offers incredible features to its users. It allows easy and fast access to your group chats, enabling you to remain in touch with your teams wherever you go. You can form separate chat rooms on HipChat, which can be public or private. If you want to invite a contact into a particular chat room, you can send them a link.
If you are looking for an app that offers fast messaging, HipChat is an ideal option. HipChat offers Trello and JIRA integrations, enabling you to turn your message into a Trello card or share updates regarding JIRA projects in your conversations.
It offers a simple user interface, making it easier for users to adapt to the application. The team that invented HipChat also launched Stride, which allows you to conduct video and audio calls and screen sharing to manage remote teams easily.
Twist
If you are looking for an app that offers threaded conversations, Twist is an ideal option. It is often effortless to miss messages that pop up in a general chat session, and that is precisely why Twist turns the conversations into a thread, allowing you to track each message. This ensures that you do not miss out on any vital information.
If you want to say something, you must post your comment on an existing thread or make a new one. It also offers a traditional chat experience through the ‘Messages’ tab. This allows you to send direct messages to your contacts. It comes at a price of around $6 per month. Plus, you can utilize the integrations to create your chatbots.
These are the top 3 messaging programs for managing remote teams effectively. Other famous team chat apps include Microsoft Teams, Flock, Discord, Cisco Spark, Mattermost, ChatWork, Ryver, Zoho Chat, and Google Hangouts Chat.
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