As of 2021, to be very frank, there are no ‘plan vanilla’ team chat apps in the market. They have all upgraded into collaboration tools as work is not just limited to chats. Today’s chat apps also include emails, phone calls, shared documents, to-dos, work items and integrations with third-party apps. In short, they have become ‘work hubs’ to satisfy all the communication and collaboration needs of an organization.
Though Slack was a pioneer in the team chat apps, today, Microsoft Teams is leading the pack with over 145 million daily active users. In the last couple of years, many new tools have joined the bandwagon and they are giving these giant team chat apps a run for their money.
Choosing a team chat app for your organization is one of the most important decisions you can make. Not only does it influence collaboration and communication but also directly impacts business productivity. For that reason, you need to consider all the vital factors discussed below to be sure that you are choosing the right team chat app.
1. Chat with context
Communication has no meaning without context. The hardest thing about communicating effectively is knowing how to “set the context”. While using other team chat apps, since members mostly use channels and not specific topics, context gets lost and information gets buried. With a deluge of messages and notifications, you will end up losing some important information that can have serious implications on your work.
How Clariti maintains context in all your conversations
Since Clariti allows you to chat from virtually any other mode of communication such as a group chat, an email, a cloud document etc, there is no need to worry about maintaining context when referring to those items in a chat. For instance, in Clariti, when you receive an email, you can immediately start chatting from the email and the recipient will understand the context that you are talking about — without you having to forward the email! You can save both the email and related chat in a TopicFolder preserving context for later referral. Using Clariti, you can seamlessly connect and store all the chats with other communications such as email, chat, cloud storage, social feeds, etc into one TopicFolder. That too, Clariti can do it automatically in real-time without your active intervention.
2. Avoid noisy chats
A common grouse against Slack and other team chat apps is you can get stuck in long and never-ending group chats that demand your attention 24/7. A study points out that on average, each Slack user sends more than 200 messages per week and there are power users who send 1,000 messages per day. Not only does it put pressure on you to be online & available all the time, you can also have a hard time concentrating on your work due to all the noise from pings from group chats that may or may not be relevant.
How Clariti handles the noise
When you use Clariti, you can start a group chat with multiple Clariti users on a specific topic. However, unlike channels Clariti group chats are not rigid. Group members can be added and removed on-the-fly. Consequently, group members only get chat alerts on issues that are important to them. This helps you avoid unwanted messages from multiple groups. So, you are not overloaded with too much of unnecessary information.
3. Stop getting lost in chat channels
Most of the team chat users use high level channels and not specific topics. Because of this, over time context gets lost and information gets buried. Later on, when you want to search for some information, you will have to search in multiple channels. This is highly inefficient and there are more opportunities for information leakage or things falling through the cracks.
How Clariti avoids getting lost in channels
Unlike other team chat tools, in Clariti there are no chat channels. There is no need to constantly track all the chats in the channels. Whenever you want to start a group chat, you can go to the relevant TopicFolder and start a chat. When you do this, all the communication from that chat and other items referencing that chat will be automatically stored inside the TopicFolder. Later on, you don’t have to search information in multiple places. All you have to do is remember the name of the TopicFolder and look inside it.
4. Avoid information silos
While team chat apps bring other communications like emails, online documents and social media in chat channels, all the related communications are not connected. Consequently, all your communication remains in silos and later on, if you want to refer to a specific conversation or files, you will have to search in multiple channels or chat rooms within the same tool or remember all the information in memory to visualize the big picture.
How Clariti helps you to connect all related communication using TopicFolders
With Clariti, not only can teams chat but they can also work with all other communication forms naturally. Clariti supports email, chat, and shared documents among others to exchange information. Not only does Clariti bring all the information in one place, but it also connects all the related information in TopicFolder.
5. Rich group-chat features
It is not enough if your team chat app supports chat only. It should have all features that are needed for your team to collaborate effectively.
Clariti group-chat offers
- Ability to add or remove participants on-the-go. This flexibility cannot be there in other apps that are channel-based.
- You can move any group chat to a TopicFolder where other related communication is stored.
- You can create a to-do directly from the chat. Later, when the to-do is triggered, you will understand the context.
- You can compose a mail with chat as reference.
- You can share one chat as reference and begin another chat.
- You can choose to pin any chat for future and quick reference.
6. Ease of use
When introducing a team chat app in your organization, it is crucial to keep in mind that the tool must be easy to use. Otherwise, it will be resisted by employees, or you may have to introduce a training program, which is costly and time-consuming. So, you should make sure that the tool that you are using is user-friendly and doesn’t require any formal training.
Clariti is easy to use
Clariti is a web-based application that can be accessed from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection. Since Clariti is cloud-based, no installation or download is required. Clariti is built with small businesses in mind. That means it is easy to use, and your employees can get started with it in the shortest time possible. Furthermore, all your employees will have an easy time onboarding and training is not needed.
7. Other non-chat features
As discussed above, team chat app is not about chatting only and your team will need other features like calls, to-dos, screen sharing etc for effective collaboration. So, you need to make sure that the tool you are selecting has all the features that are needed for modern collaboration or remote working.
Clariti is comprehensive
Organizations implementing unified communication software solution like Clariti will enjoy the benefits of having all their systems work together, smoothly and securely to enable effective collaboration.
- Using Clariti, you team can collaborate from anywhere
- Clariti has voice calling to allow quick communications when needed
- Clariti has Screen sharing to share images or documents in team calls
- Using Clariti, you can take notes during meetings to remember the context. The notes are automatically linked to the call along with notes of other participants.
- In Clariti, users can add or remove participants in group conversations on-the-fly providing flexibility to include members in the chat only when needed.
- Clariti supports asynchronous (email) and synchronous (chat) communications.
8. Security features
One major concern when it comes to team chat app is security. When you have thousands of employees sending messages, sharing, downloading files etc, you should make sure that your data is safe.
Clariti is not only a feature-rich team chat app but also incorporates essential security measures to safeguard your data. Clariti maintains safety and privacy of all your communication and data. Clariti is securely hosted on Amazon Web Services, providing total reliability, 100% uptime, and trusted security. It uses 256-bit SHA encryption for both data and communication.
9. Cost-effective
Businesses may find it very difficult to afford team chat apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams because they are expensive to own. In addition, the businesses will have to pay for all the integrations. If everybody in the team is not tech-savvy, they will need dedicated resources to help with all the integrations. In addition, their employees will also have to go through training to make use of all the features.
Clariti is free and easy to use and it doesn’t require any training. Businesses may find it extremely convenient to own and use Clariti. Clariti is a unified business communication and collaboration tool that supports direct and group chat, besides other communication forms such as emails, shared documents, voice calls and to-dos. Why settle for a chat-only app when you can do so much more with Clariti.
