Best Business Instant Messaging Software
Featured Business Instant Messaging Software At A Glance
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13,090,136 Twitter followers
580,771 Twitter followers
31,798,732 Twitter followers
1,045,125 Twitter followers
13,090,136 Twitter followers
721,403 Twitter followers
1,236 Twitter followers
62,167 Twitter followers
68,797 Twitter followers
2,659 Twitter followers
137,102 Twitter followers
644 Twitter followers
17 Twitter followers
1,294 Twitter followers
3,368 Twitter followers
Learn More About Business Instant Messaging Software
What is Business Instant Messaging Software?
Business instant messaging software provide users with instant messaging platforms that allow direct and group messaging capabilities within an organization. These tools aim to facilitate quick conversations between team members. Business messaging tools make communicating with coworkers as easy as chatting with friends on social media or via text. Most business instant messaging options include emoji and GIF capability to promote authentic and natural conversation within the workplace.
Key Benefits of Business Instant Messaging Software
- Offer instant communication capability between team members
- Allow teams to connect regardless of location
- Make messages easily searchable
- Provide a less formal virtual space for team communication
- Connect an organization horizontally and vertically
Why Use Business Instant Messaging Software?
Most modern businesses leverage some type of business instant messaging software. They provide a cornucopia of benefits, making them a mainstay of the modern software stack.
Rapid — Business messaging tools support employees by bringing instant messaging to a workforce. Teams can rapidly communicate with one another, facilitating collaboration between remote employees, across teams, or across offices.
Informal — Email etiquette is notoriously difficult to master and can feel unnecessarily formal for simple questions. Business messaging tools allow teams to toss out overly professional decorum and focus on content over etiquette.
Mobile — All competitive business instant messaging products tout a robust, intuitive mobile application to pair with their desktop offering. Today, business requires people to reachable to support their peers at all times. Business instant messaging platforms are easy to use at work and on the go.
Adoptable — Instant messaging feels natural for most users at this point. Millennials now constitute the bulk of the workforce, and business instant messaging software is a natural step for this generation. Adoption rates are high since business messengers feel familiar.
Who Uses Business Instant Messaging Software?
Organizations across industries use business instant messengers to connect their employees. The software equips users with a quick, streamlined method of communicating with peers for all topics These platforms provide a time-effective alternative to passive mediums such as email or intrusive in-person meetings. The benefits provided by business instant messaging software are useful to businesses of any size—from three people to 3,000 people. Whether coordinating shifts in a university’s psychology lab or meetings in a Fortune 500 company, efficient communication is paramount.
Kinds of Business Instant Messaging Software
Stand-alone — Many business instant messengers are stand-alone products integrations. Dedicated business instant messaging tools sometimes provide additional features like video conferencing, limited VoIP capability, and employee directories to create a comprehensive communication hub.
Embedded — Instant messaging might come as an additional feature in other types of software or larger collaboration suites. Business instant messaging functionality is often found in employee intranet software, employee engagement software, or virtual workspaces. Other types of communication software, like video conferencing software, can also provide instant messaging.
Industry-specific — Some business instant messengers are built for specific industries with their unique needs in mind. For example, business instant messaging tools for manufacturing and field service will often include push-to-talk (PTT) software built in so remote employees have multiple instant communication channels. There are also clinical communication and collaboration platforms and HIPAA compliant messaging software built specifically for health care organizations. These platforms take patient confidentiality into consideration. Some popular, generalized business messengers have started to create industry-specific solutions or build compliance into their product so they’re available for specific industries.
Business Instant Messaging Software Features
Business instant messaging software share a few basic features across all products. As the space continues to become more competitive, some vendors have added additional communication and productivity features to help their product stand out.
Instant messaging — Instant, direct messaging is the main feature of business messenger applications. Users can instantly send direct or group messages. Depending on the administrator’s permissions, additional groups can be made by users or administrators.
Status updates — Users can leave a status attached to their profile to indicate their availability.
Activity feed — An activity feed is available to update users on new direct messages sent to them or new messages in groups. The feed will sometimes present replies to posts made by the user.
Notifications — Business messaging tools provide notifications when a user receives a direct message or a message is posted in a group. Additionally, users can turn notifications off or set certain permissions for notifications.
Emojis — Business messaging apps will often come loaded with emojis. Some applications even allow users to create their own.
Search — A search bar enables users to use keywords to easily find old messages.
File sharing — One of the main benefits of business messaging is the ability to easily and quickly share files and documents. Users can send links to documents hosted in the cloud or attach files saved on a desktop. Some tools even integrate with file repositories for streamlined file sharing.
Surveys and polls — Business messengers often provide simple survey and polling features allowing users to rapidly make decisions within the app.
Additional Business Instant Messaging Features
Conferencing — There has been increased effort to include audio and video conferencing functionality within business instant messaging products. When users can quickly move between text-based and audio-based communications, problems are resolved and questions are answered more efficiently.
Knowledge base integration — Some knowledge management tools serve as connectors between business instant messaging apps and knowledge bases. This type of integration attaches questions to answers then sends both to a searchable knowledge base.
Automatic translation — Some business messaging applications can automatically translate messages from one language into another via machine translation software.
Screen sharing — Business messengers with video conferencing capability often allow screen sharing between conference participants.
AI assistants — AI assistants are sometimes included in business messaging apps. They guide users to behaviors based on the messages they’ve sent. For example, if a user types to another that they need to meet at a certain date or time, an embedded AI assistant can open a prompt for the user to add an event to their calendar.
Potential Issues with Business Instant Messaging Software
Contextual inappropriateness — The convenience of instant messaging in the workplace is often a boon. As useful as business instant messaging software is, it is not always the most efficient or appropriate channel for certain situations. Problems can arise when individuals haven’t created clear distinctions for when it is appropriate to use a business messenger over email or another communication channel. While one-line emails could easily be relayed in an instant messenger, long-form messages with potential external participants aren’t appropriate on a business instant messaging platform.
This potential problem can be avoided with the implementation of clear guidelines identifying which communication channels should be used in a given situation. Businesses and organizations should include these guidelines in their onboarding and training process and make them available in a knowledge base for reference. Individuals who don’t use the appropriate channels should be gently reminded to break these habits.
