3 Tools For Business Communication And Their Pros And Cons

When communication within your business is easy, your workplace will thrive. Long gone are the days when it was necessary to go to someone’s desk or call them. If you want to improve the way you communicate in your office, it’s time to learn about some key tools and their pros and cons. Communication is essential to starting and building a successful business.

Tools for business communication

Types of communication

  • External
  • Internal

Basic communication tools

  • Post
  • By email
  • Telephones
  • Landlines
  • Cell phones
  • smart phones
  • Internet calling: Google Voice and more
  • SMS/text messages
  • Cellular and data plans
  • Video and web conferencing
  • Social networks
  • G-Suite and Microsoft 365/Office

Slack for instant messaging

In addition to sending and receiving messages, you can engage in secure file sharing, video calling, and audio calling. You can try Slack’s Freemium package and take advantage of 10K message history and 5GB of storage. If you choose the Slack Plus plan, you’ll pay $15 per user and enjoy a generous 20GB of storage. There is also a search function, which proves itself when working with uploaded documents. Probably the biggest downside of Slack is the 10,000 message limit.

Microsoft Teams for easy collaboration

You can start using Microsoft Teams as part of your Office 365 package if you have it. Instant chat plus Skype audio and video available. If you use Microsoft Office 365, you can integrate the software with many of its tools. If you’re one of the 155 million Microsoft Office users, adding Microsoft Teams to your repertoire can prove convenient and useful. The software will be familiar to you and will work well with your existing tools. Another big benefit of going this route is that you get to enjoy 1 TB of storage space per user, which is way more than Slack. You can overcome this with practice, but it’s less than ideal when trying to transition your organization to a new software tool.

Zoom for video conferencing

Whether your business exists in multiple locations or you have employees who work remotely, it’s a good idea to find a reliable form of video conferencing software. Video conferencing is essential to provide employees with an alternative to face-to-face meetings. When you find the right software, you can reduce some of the costs associated with traveling to meetings. With 3.7 million employees working from home at least half the time, it makes sense to have reliable video conferencing software. Zoom allows you to include up to 100 active participants in a video conference. You can also include up to 10,000 view-only participants. There is also screen sharing, which is very important when you are working on projects in several places. With 94% of businesses using video conferencing claiming to increase productivity, it makes sense to incorporate reliable technology into your offices. Zoom makes it easy for attendees to join because all they have to do is click on the webinar link that is shared with them.

Conclusion

When you try to improve your company’s communication tools, other areas of your day-to-day operations will also improve. All you have to do is find the right technologies for your organization.