Communicate better with a business chat app
Communication in the workplace doesn’t have to be complex, frustrating, or time-consuming. It doesn’t have to involve “circling back” over a dozen emails, getting sucked into a “reply all” thread that just won’t die, or getting texts from your manager on your personal phone at midnight. With the right team chat app, communicating with all the people you work with — internally and externally — can be easy, efficient, and even (dare we say?) enjoyable.
Enterprise chat apps offer crucial business features
Business chat apps may be similar to consumer chat apps in terms of how people use them to communicate, but they differ in a few crucial ways.
Security
Enterprise chat apps allow your company to set up safeguards such as single sign-on (SSO) or multi-factor authentication, which help protect access to company communications. In addition, companies will want to look at business chat apps that use industry-standard encryption and have certifications that show they’ve met certain security and compliance measures.
Administration
Business chat apps also give administrators greater control over how employees use chat, which makes for a more efficient, secure messaging experience. You can also create announcement-only chat groups that limit the people who can post in a particular channel, keeping chatter to a minimum.
Integrations
Business chat apps are more likely to have integrations with other enterprise apps like Salesforce, Jira, and ServiceNow. These integrations give employees the tools they need right in their chat app, so they don’t need to pay the “toggle tax” of switching between apps.
What is a business chat app?
Businesses use chat apps to give teams the ability to communicate and collaborate one on one or in groups. Messaging apps have become increasingly widespread in a hybrid workforce. According to a survey of IT decision-makers, 90% reported using a messaging service daily and 95% agreed that messaging services are important for those in a remote environment.
At its core, team chat helps you communicate efficiently and get answers quickly. However, team chat apps with richer features are creating a more dynamic experience for employees, serving as a hub that facilitates collaboration, invites discussion, and houses important information.
Business chat app features and benefits
If your workplace is still using email for most written communication, you might be wondering about the benefits of chat for business.
Organization tools
Folders and stars help you keep track of your important contacts and channels, and you can bookmark chats or schedule a reminder to stay organized.
Search chats and more
Find what you’ve been looking for with universal search across your message history, files, and contacts.
Video and audio capabilities
Get the message across in multiple ways, from a voice memo to a video message, or elevate your chat to a live video meeting.
Team collaboration tools
Collaborate with your team members over chat, with additional tools like whiteboard and file sharing to help you work better.
Integrations
Improve efficiency by integrating your favorite business apps for file storage, project management, and more into your team chat workflows.
Security and privacy
Safeguard business accounts and messages by enabling features designed to enhance security and privacy.
Which app is best for business communication?
While team chat is important, we all know business communication goes beyond instant messaging. The best team chat apps aren’t just focused on chat — they’re all-in-one business communication tools.
If you’re on the hunt for the best team chat apps, consider whether the tools you’re evaluating support all the different ways people communicate at work. Video calls, phone calls, and emails are all part of our daily lives and where some of our most important business conversations take place.
Zoom One: more than business chat
Have you met Zoom One, our unified communications solution? Zoom One goes beyond what the best team chat apps can offer with tools that enhance communication across a variety of channels, all on one single, streamlined platform:
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Zoom Team Chat for business messaging
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Zoom Meetings for virtual meetings
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Zoom Phone, our cloud VoIP phone system
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Zoom Whiteboard, an online whiteboard with collaboration features
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Zoom Mail & Calendar, for streamlining your email and calendar communications
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Zoom Revenue Accelerator, our conversation intelligence software
Greater efficiency
According to a recent report from Harvard Business Review, the average worker toggles between different apps and websites nearly 1,200 times a day. That adds up to an astonishing four hours of “toggle tax” per week!
A single-platform experience can help employees reduce the amount of time it takes to switch to a new application and reorient their focus. With one app for their email, calendar, chat, phone, and video conferencing, employees don’t have to toggle, which helps them be more efficient throughout their workday. The ability to switch between chat, phone, and video calls at the click of a button helps teams communicate more effectively based on the audience and situation.
Enhanced collaboration
Business communication apps are an important tool for team collaboration. Zoom One helps facilitate collaboration with features that help team members connect in real-time as well as asynchronously.
Collaboration starts with Zoom Team Chat, which has features like file sharing and video messages, where you can record yourself and send a video to an individual or group chat. You can also have live video calls with team members on Zoom Meetings for more in-depth collaboration and decision-making.
Zoom One also has an online whiteboard solution that’s perfect for team collaboration. Zoom Whiteboard is chock-full of visual tools that help teams brainstorm, organize, and get creative. Whiteboards can be shared with other collaborators via Zoom Team Chat or pulled up during Zoom Meetings, where participants can annotate live.
Better business value
The apps you use at work may make employees’ lives easier and more enjoyable. But it all comes down to how much value these apps bring to the company.
A 2022 economic impact study, indicated that Zoom’s unified communications platform provides a 261% return on investment for a composite model organization with a payback in less than six months. The study found that the composite model organization using Zoom could:
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Improve employee productivity by adding up to 52 minutes of productivity per employee per week
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Expedite sales cycle effectiveness by improving the time-to-value of sales by 70%
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Streamline internal IT support by reducing troubleshooting time by 75%
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Eliminate redundant technologies and reduce travel to save millions annually
Business leaders want to be sure that the tools and technology they invest in have a direct impact on their organization. Zoom One’s features aren’t just designed to help you collaborate better or communicate more effectively in a hybrid workforce, they could actually improve productivity, save time, and reduce hard costs.
Discover a new team chat app
If you haven’t used Zoom Team Chat, it’s included with all of our plans as part of your Zoom One experience. That means teams already using Zoom can easily incorporate chat for business into your workday.
Want to get started using Zoom Team Chat? Simply click the Team Chat icon at the top of your Zoom client to start chatting with your colleagues today. Check out the Zoom Learning Center for everything you need to know about chat channels, search, settings, and more.