Business Instant Messaging Apps: All You Need to Know
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Project Manager
The business world has been changing quite rapidly for the last couple of years. If earlier only some companies practiced remote work of their employees, now it has become a necessity. Covid 19 has made its adjustments to the workflow organization. According to Buffer’s 2022 State of Remote Work report in cooperation with Nomad List and Remote OK, 97% of respondents would prefer working remotely for the rest of their professional career, and 86% of employees would like to have either full-remote or remote-first work structure. At the same time, PWC has revealed that 83% of employers regard remote work as a real success for their companies.
The impossibility of arranging face-to-face meetings or passing documents from hand to hand makes efficient business communication challenging. Under such conditions, companies must organize the communication process in a new way. It should be more flexible with the opportunity to reach a person regardless of their location. Business messaging apps are specially developed to address these issues. They help companies run the workflow smoother and engage the staff in everyday collaboration without too much stress or being distracted from their duties.
It would be better if you understood which product suits your requirements the best and meets all your business demands. So, based on our experience and expertise, the Powercode team has prepared the key information on such messengers to make your life easier.
As with anything in our life, either professional or personal, instant messaging for business communication has its dark side. Despite all its advantages, several factors should be carefully considered when making a decision. The most crucial ones are security and legal threats.
Security issues. Business communication involves the day-to-day exchange of corporate information and confidential customer data. Therefore, the issue of providing a protected communication channel ensuring that the organization does not face data leaks or hacker attacks is the most topical. Do not forget about corporate instant messaging spam, also known as Spim. Not all applications guarantee a high level of protection and encryption of data transmission.
Legal threats. This risk is a logical continuation of the first threat. They are interrelated and should be regarded together. Firstly, it is the transfer of essential data via messenger. They can be lost or stolen and used by a third party. How to behave in this case and prove your legal rights? The company should ask this question when choosing a corporate messaging app. Secondly, there is a lack of data capture or recording while cooperating with clients. There is no guarantee that exactly the needed information will be transferred and not more conventional or “improper” to compromise your company or sabotage the deal. In this case, defending your rights can be quite challenging.
Large companies, especially those that have already bought and paid for Office 365, prefer Microsoft Teams as a way of business communication. According to the Statista report, Microsoft Teams has about 145 mln active users daily, including 12,844 companies. Three leading industries implementing this messaging software in their operation are Computer Software, Information Technology and Services, and Health Care. Microsoft Teams provides large businesses with numerous conversation channels and capabilities to hold as many video, audio, and virtual meetings (up to 100 people in a room) as the situation requires.
Almost 60% of venture capital-funded startups and freelancers regard Slack as their Business’s optimal instant messaging platform. They identify a free plan allowing access to 5 GB file storage, keeping the 10,000 most recent messages, and ten third-party integrations as one of the main advantages. With audio and video calls, these facilities, a high level of customization, accessibility, and a user-friendly interface attract more users.
However, you can regard other instant business messengers if you are a small business. Having the basic features of the leading messaging platforms, they fulfill their function as an efficient collaboration tool uniting employees and high management of the company. Some aim at saving your company’s time or budget, and some seek to provide services for particular types of companies.
Now we are using Rocket.Chat and believe it’s a great open-source solution for businesses. It provides different versions to cover all company’s needs. You can hold real-time online video and audio meetings with employees located in different places, colleagues, or clients. Other key features are:
Benefits of business instant messaging
If we compare enterprise messaging apps with other means of communication, they have a number of advantages over the latter. Here are some of them:
- Facilitation of business communication. Your team members can share information, ask questions, respond to inquiries or fulfill other activities promptly without demanding to be at their workplace. It is possible to get the answer in a few minutes. Such communication tools for business are usually either mobile-based or mobile responsive. So they are always at hand. There is no need to wait forever to hold face-to-face meetings or stay late at work, waiting for a client or a particular employee.
- Easy staff management. Messaging not only helps organize the communication process but also performs administrative functions. Apps allow employers to track the work of their staff, see their activities, and streamline their performance. If an employee needs some assistance in fulfilling the duties or tasks, managers can easily reach this person and clarify the situation.
- High employees’ sense of security. Instant messaging apps connect all participants in the working process. They enable people to feel like they are having a discussion in the casual atmosphere at the office. Moreover, team members know that they can write, organize a call, or send a request to any person in the company, and it won’t be lost on its way.
- Corporate information storage. Business messengers store all files sent via them. If necessary, a person can find them in a repository and examine them again. The types of files are various: text, audio, presentation, video, picture, etc. There is no more need to look for the person who sent the file and ask them to resend it. You also shouldn’t worry about losing the file on your device.
- Thematic chat channels. Instant messaging apps for business enable users to create separate charts for specific purposes. So, you don’t have to overload the chat with all possible topics and tasks. A person creates a chat for a particular project and runs things there. It is also possible to split departments or allocate a separate channel for client cooperation. Thus, it contributes to data leakage prevention.
Risks of business instant messaging
As with anything in our life, either professional or personal, instant messaging for business communication has its dark side. Despite all its advantages, several factors should be carefully considered when making a decision. The most crucial ones are security and legal threats.
Security issues. Business communication involves the day-to-day exchange of corporate information and confidential customer data. Therefore, the issue of providing a protected communication channel ensuring that the organization does not face data leaks or hacker attacks is the most topical. Do not forget about corporate instant messaging spam, also known as Spim. Not all applications guarantee a high level of protection and encryption of data transmission.
Legal threats. This risk is a logical continuation of the first threat. They are interrelated and should be regarded together. Firstly, it is the transfer of essential data via messenger. They can be lost or stolen and used by a third party. How to behave in this case and prove your legal rights? The company should ask this question when choosing a corporate messaging app. Secondly, there is a lack of data capture or recording while cooperating with clients. There is no guarantee that exactly the needed information will be transferred and not more conventional or “improper” to compromise your company or sabotage the deal. In this case, defending your rights can be quite challenging.
How to choose the most suitable app
The market of instant messengers for businesses is extensive, and companies, especially small businesses, face certain challenges in choosing the most appropriate for their needs and budget. We have outlined five main aspects of instant messaging apps for business you should examine before making a decision.
Large companies, especially those that have already bought and paid for Office 365, prefer Microsoft Teams as a way of business communication. According to the Statista report, Microsoft Teams has about 145 mln active users daily, including 12,844 companies. Three leading industries implementing this messaging software in their operation are Computer Software, Information Technology and Services, and Health Care. Microsoft Teams provides large businesses with numerous conversation channels and capabilities to hold as many video, audio, and virtual meetings (up to 100 people in a room) as the situation requires.
Almost 60% of venture capital-funded startups and freelancers regard Slack as their Business’s optimal instant messaging platform. They identify a free plan allowing access to 5 GB file storage, keeping the 10,000 most recent messages, and ten third-party integrations as one of the main advantages. With audio and video calls, these facilities, a high level of customization, accessibility, and a user-friendly interface attract more users.
However, you can regard other instant business messengers if you are a small business. Having the basic features of the leading messaging platforms, they fulfill their function as an efficient collaboration tool uniting employees and high management of the company. Some aim at saving your company’s time or budget, and some seek to provide services for particular types of companies.
Powercode’s instant messaging solution
Here, at Powercode, we have examined and used various instant business messaging software to get a complete picture of the market offers and share our experience with clients. We searched for one with a wide range of functions, appropriate level of security, understandable architecture, and robust integration features. The issue of budget and costs were not the least.
Now we are using Rocket.Chat and believe it’s a great open-source solution for businesses. It provides different versions to cover all company’s needs. You can hold real-time online video and audio meetings with employees located in different places, colleagues, or clients. Other key features are:
- live chat;
- screen and file sharing;
- customization option;
- two-factor authentification (2FA) and E2E;
- third-party integration;
- compliance with HIPPA, CCPA, and GDPR;
- API;
- high level of transparency;
- inbuild support;
- alerts notifications.
