You can’t deny that communication is the lifeblood of every business. Communication is more important than ever in today’s remote working environment, where peers are dispersed across the globe. Apart from remote teams, organisations that are still in the office space rely on chat applications for improved collaboration due to the perks and capabilities they provide. This is where workplace chat applications come into play. These chat applications facilitate communication and aid in the establishment of positive work culture among team members.
What Exactly Is Workplace Chat Software?
Workplace chat applications are communication technologies that have mostly replaced email as the major form of workplace chat. These applications go beyond email capabilities by allowing team members to interact with one another, discuss work, and come up with novel ways to get things done. Apart from other productivity tools, workplace chat software include numerous capabilities such as private chats, group talks, and voice and video conferencing.
Let us look at the main advantages of workplace chat software for your business:
Improved Communication
One of the most essential advantages of using chat software is that team members can communicate flawlessly even if they are in different places. It allows people to communicate, debate ideas, and participate in video conversations even when they are geographically separated.
Workflow Simplified
Workplace chat software help the team organise their work and improve the organization’s productivity. Employees may schedule daily meetings to organise their work, assign assignments, and receive immediate feedback.
Employee Involvement
Aside from increasing workflow and communication, chat software encourages employees to participate in team activities, which increases productivity.
Maintain Your Organization
Being unaware of what is going on and failing to complete work is a regular office scenario, but not with chat apps. Team communication tools keep things organised and keep you informed of what is going on and what tasks need to be completed.
It saves time
When working with other team members to complete a task, it is critical to keep track of time. Workplace chat software saves you time by eliminating the need to leave your workstation and go to the individual to discuss topics. As a result, efforts and resources are reduced in order to eliminate trivial expenditures.
Develop team relationships
Employees that work together as a team must have a positive working relationship. Collaboration on projects and activities using communication software helps to improve connections and produce new ideas.
Best Workplace Chat Software you for better communication
We’ve compiled a list of the top workplace chat software available to help your company’s communication game. The fact that many communication platforms provide free options for small teams is intriguing.
1. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a popular collaborative workspace inside the Office 365 work suite. Organizations praise Microsoft Teams for its critical role in supporting workplace dialogues, team collaboration, video conferencing, and document sharing to boost employee communication and productivity.
While Microsoft Teams is most well known for its video conferencing features, its Group Chat section is not far behind. They have successfully supplanted email as a means of communication, particularly for team members who work remotely.
Microsoft Teams Group Chat allows you to connect with other business programmes in addition to talking with one another. In summary, the employees get the impression that they are virtually working in the office. Teams Group Chat is included in the Microsoft Teams desktop client, online client, and mobile application. Microsoft Teams is available on all platforms, including iOS, macOS, Windows, and Android. Microsoft Teams is also available as a browser extension, which you may install on your favourite browser.
Teams Group Chat is feature-rich, with all of the functionality found in any workplace chat software. Emojis, GIFs, rich-text editing, mentions, thread responses, and file sharing are all available. By pressing an icon, users may easily transition from instant messaging to video calls. You may also mute the conversations to stop receiving alerts and even pin the relevant ones.
Other characteristics include:
- When someone tags or informs you, you will get notifications.
- Access files sent by team members and share them with them.
- You may use the Message Search function to look for messages by inputting keywords.
- In addition to instant messaging, you may use audio calls to engage with team members.
- Microsoft Teams may be integrated with other business-related applications in your organisation.
- Users can get the tool as an add-on to subscriptions or specialised services like Outlook 365.
Microsoft Teams, as previously stated, is accessible as part of Office Suite 365. The free edition of Teams has limited storage capacity and other limitations. Microsoft Teams Essentials, on the other hand, includes various add-ons and costs USD 4.00 per user each month. Microsoft 365 Business Basic costs $5.00 per user per month.
2. Google Chat
Google Chat is a corporate communication software that is included with Google Workspace. It enables business and organisational team members to interact and communicate on projects and tasks. Google Chat functions as a centralised hub, allowing team members and supervisors to establish virtual chat rooms, configure chat threads, track job completion, and take follow-ups.
There are distinct options for talking, file sharing, and task assignment and fulfilment in each chat room. This allows you to readily access files shared by you and your coworkers within the room. In addition, you may assign jobs to others and examine the tasks allocated to you in the room. Aside from this, there are other buttons for performing various things, like uploading attachments, embedding emojis and animated GIFs, and even scheduling a video chat via Google Meet.
Employees can enable notifications to be notified when their colleagues share files, links, or comments on Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides; Google Chat supports both direct messages and group conversations; and employees can enable notifications to be notified when their colleagues share files, links, or comments on Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides. Businesses may easily connect the messaging app with Google Calendar, making it simple to organise meetings based on team members’ availability. Google Chat conforms to GDPR, HIPAA, ISO, and AICPA standards and policies, and you may increase security by configuring the sign-on mechanism or two-factor authentication.
Google Chat includes API connectivity, which allows it to interface with GSuite apps as well as other third-party tools and applications. The chat platform also includes the popular inbox search tool, which allows users to rapidly find past messages and shared files in chats.
Google Chat is platform-independent and can be accessed via the web client and the standalone programme on Windows, Mac, Android handsets, and iPhones. You must have a Google Workspace account to use Google Chat.
Users with a Gmail account already have a workplace account. Google Chat is a component of Google Workspace, and it is accessible via the Google Workspace free account. To access extra features, you may upgrade to the premium edition of Google Workspace, which costs USD 6 per user each month.
3. Workplace
Workplace Chat is a commercial communication software that connects distant team members in a simple yet safe manner. Meta owns it and incorporates services such as Chat, Video Calling, Posts, News Feed, and Groups to assist in publishing all business-related information.
Workplace Chat may simply interact with your organization’s business tools to provide a safe and effective means of exchanging knowledge and developing work communities. This chat software allows your team to communicate in real-time by providing recommendations via comments, responses, and instant messaging. It becomes very simple to enhance the workplace culture and interact with colleagues from all around the world.
Meta’s Workplace allows you to create collaborative areas known as groups. These groups assist in project management by assigning tasks to teammates, providing feedback, sharing updates, mentioning peers, and securely sharing data with no storage limitations. You may make these groups private, public, or secret, and you can even make groups with people from other corporations. Group administrators can restrict team members’ access to ensure that only authorised individuals have access to it.
The Workplace Chat app integrates with over 50 corporate products, the most important of which being Office 365, Google Workspace, and ServiceNow. Custom integrations may also be created to connect the workspace chat with any other tool in your organisation. The firm assures that the user’s sensitive information is kept private.
The following are the primary characteristics of Meta’s Workplace Chat:
- The Live Video and Voice Call functions serve as a communication medium for broadcasting your company’s events and information in order to promote team morale.
- The knowledge library is useful for creating, storing, and sharing business papers in the chat app. This way, all of the information on your PC and devices is better organised and accessible.
- Workplace groups assist in effectively communicating and collaborating with the team in order to improve the work culture.
- The ML-powered News Feed provides tailored, relevant, and prioritised content to assist you in remaining focused and productive.
Meta’s Workplace is platform-agnostic, and you can use it on both desktop and mobile devices to keep updated from anywhere. Workplace chat starts at USD 4.00 a month, with a 30-day trial period to try the software before purchasing it.
4. Chatwork
Chatwork gives teams a new, more efficient way to work. There are chat rooms for each team project, so conversations regarding each project may be kept separate. All team members may monitor and engage in real-time progress, details, and choices.
Chatwork provides the following capabilities to help team members stay on track with their work and bond with one another:
Chat Administration
- My Chat area allows you to take notes on key information.
- Chat with any of the team members directly.
- In the group chat room, create a distinct group for each project.
- Using keywords, look for past messages.
Task Administration
- Create and assign assignments to your coworkers so that everyone understands their roles.
- Keep track of your assignment’s progress in relation to the due date.
- Mark the assignment as finished, and the manager will be alerted automatically.
Sharing of files
- Share files in several formats, including Word, Excel, and images.
- Before uploading files, preview them in the browser.
- Download files that your peers have shared with you.
Video Conference
- Set up a video conference call with the members of the group.
- Face-to-face conversations with group members
- You may easily share your screen with other video conference participants.
- Share photos in video calls using smartphones.
Management Contact
- Invite your coworkers to join your organization’s chat.
- Accept or deny the invitation to join.
- To find colleagues, enter their chatwork ID or email address.
Management of notifications
- Allow your browser to inform you of chat activity.
- Turn on or off notification noises.
- Configure Chatwork to inform you when new emails arrive in your inbox.
User Administration
- Add new people to the group (The user limit depends on the subscription).
- Members should be classified and evaluated.
- User information, such as passwords, should be updated.
Management of Profiles
- Make your avatar or an image your profile picture.
- Include a cover photo from the profile.
- Make your Chatwork ID unique.
Include your contact information, such as your email address and phone number. Chatwork offers a free version with restricted capabilities. If your firm decides to switch to the premium edition, it will cost USD 5 per user per month, invoiced annually.
5. Mattermost
Mattermost is a robust all-in-one communication system that enables engineers to communicate while maintaining security. It consists of three major platforms:
- Channels: It allows your team to communicate and stay connected on a one-to-one basis as well as through group chat.
- Playbooks: they help organisations to construct and set up procedures in order to achieve desired results.
- Boards-Mattermost features Kanban Boards frameworks to aid with project and task management and meeting critical milestones.
Mattermost’s channel-based collaboration concept connects your company’s people, processes, and all of its technologies in one location. This one-of-a-kind, open-source workplace messaging programme is accessible as a browser-based app, desktop client, and mobile app.
Compliance reporting, chat archiving, and message searching are just a few of the services available on Mattermost’s channel platform. Other capabilities include private and group chats; file and link sharing; custom emojis; various language support; slash commands; searchable message history; webhooks; and more.
All of these characteristics contribute to Mattermost’s emergence as a prominent workplace messaging platform for organisations to conduct smooth conversations among team members while avoiding mistakes and misunderstandings.
Aside from these features, the Enterprise edition of this communication platform includes additional features such as Single Sign On (SSO), Advanced Permissions, and Multifactor Authentication (MFA), performance monitoring features, compliance reports, custom branding, and enterprise search capabilities.
Other features of this production communication channel include:
- Matttermost meets all of the businesses’ security standards, giving them the most control over their sensitive data.
- It is extremely extendable and works with a diverse set of third-party apps and connectors.
- supports rich text formatting and code syntax highlighting to make it easier for developers to communicate.
- With integrated voice and video conferencing, you can quickly switch to face-to-face communications mode by pressing a button.
Mattermost’s Starter edition is free and designed for small teams who require fewer functionalities. If you want more capabilities, the professional edition costs USD 10 per user each month. You must request a quotation if you wish to use the Enterprise edition.
Mattermost is also available as a self-hosted solution, which means you can put it on your own cloud server or get one set up on Kamatera for as little as $6 per month.
6. Slack
Slack is a popular messaging and workplace communication programme that helps businesses increase communication and cooperation among team members while also providing access to business resources regardless of location or working mode. It allows channels that organise team members by project, department, office location, and other criteria. Users may quickly stay aware of topics that interest them in this manner.
Everyone has access to the public channels, so everyone is aware of what the other team is working on. For example, instead of waiting for someone to assist them from the beginning, newcomers may rapidly get on track.
Open conversations, private groups, direct messaging, message archiving, file sharing, and in-depth contextual searches are also supported by Slack. It can sync with other enterprise tools and services to help consolidate notifications, files, and other data in one location. As a result, it removes the need to continually switch between tabs and dashboards, remember login credentials for several platforms, and juggle work tools.
Slack is meant to interface with platforms like MailChimp, Dropbox, and Google Drive to help you work smarter and make better decisions. It automatically indexes and archives everything, allowing the organisation to quickly establish a large knowledge base. Aside from these elements that are shared by all workplace chat services, Slack distinguishes itself through three distinct features:
- Schedule Send: Slack allows you to schedule your messages to be sent at a specific time in the future rather than immediately.
- Slack Huddles: With this feature, any team member may rapidly invite others in a channel or group to attend an audio or video conference. It is useful when you need to arrange a rapid spoken message.
- Slack Connect DMs: Slack Connect DMs are only available with premium accounts and allow you to invite people who aren’t in the group to communicate with you directly.
The free edition only gives you access to the most basic functions. The pro version, which costs USD 2.67 per user, offers significant capabilities for small teams, while the business+ version, which costs USD 5 per person, enables you to expand your firm. Slack now offers an Enterprise edition for larger businesses that require more robust capabilities.
Finishing up
We hope you learned about the best chat software for improving communication and cooperation among your company’s team members, particularly those who work remotely. Workplace cooperation among team members will undoubtedly increase in a remote working environment, regardless of the chat software you employ.
