Rethinking Communications for the Coronavirus Age

Ever since the massively popular service Slack won workers’ hearts, business messaging apps have become the de facto medium for in-office communication. These apps put instant messaging, text messaging platforms, private forums, video calls, file sharing, and sometimes screen sharing, into one hub for collaboration. The result is a single place to chat with colleagues, both in real time and asynchronously. Now that COVID-19 is here, teams will also need to think seriously about how to stay in touch with members who are quarantined, can’t travel, want to eschew face-to-face meetings, or are otherwise separated. Business messaging apps can be key part of the solution.

You can have one-on-one conversations, group chats that are by invitation only, and public conversations with anyone who wants to join them. When used appropriately, team chat apps are among the best productivity tools because they make conversations easier to track, improve teamwork, and help maintain company culture.

Business messaging apps have several advantages over the productivity black hole that is email. Firstly, they encourage brevity. Due to these apps’ layouts and evolving etiquette about using them, messages tend to be succinct, unlike email where many feel compelled to overexplain. Secondly, most discussions occur on an opt-in basis. You can join conversations that are applicable to you, and you’re equally welcome to skip anything irrelevant. If you’re needed, someone can put an @ sign before your name to flag you. That’s much clearer than being CCed on an email when you have no idea what your role in the conversation should be. Thirdly, messaging apps allow for persistent, ongoing conversations, which isn’t a strong suit of email. Open a forum called «Brainstorming,» and people can add an idea whenever it strikes them.

What are these apps and what makes them different from one another?

Everyone Loves Slack, Right?

Slack is one of the most well-known and loved of all the team messaging apps. There are plenty of alternatives to Slack, but this app made significant headway in adoption early in its life. Once Slack found its legs, a healthy marketing push didn’t hurt either. According to CNBC, the company spent $104 million on marketing in fiscal year 2017, and the figure has doubled since then.

Aside from getting the word out early, Slack also became something of a darling because it was so different from email. It embraced playfulness with emoji, reacji (emoji used as a reaction to a post), and animated GIFs. The app has also grown its feature list steadily and with real value-adds. If you’re familiar with Slack, chat programs you might remember when it added customizable status alerts, threaded messages, or the ability to forward emails into the app. Plus, Slack integrates really well with dozens of other online apps and services. If you need to get alerts about activity from another app, chances are you can get them in Slack.

If you’re already a fan of the app, we have 45 Slack tips to help you get the most out of it.

Of course, not everyone adores Slack. Some find it too busy, too noisy, although there are tricks to making Slack less distracting. Others acknowledge that Slack has plentiful features, but not the features they need. Another feature-packed app, Glip by RingCentral, offers a bunch of tools you won’t find in Slack (unless you add them through an integration). Glip has collaborative document editing, for example, plus a team calendar and task management tools. Glip also gives you tools for marking up images and PDFs quickblox.com. If your team already has the VoIP service RingCentral Office, you’re already paying for Glip, which is nicely integrated. Give it a whirl if you haven’t already.