Since 2020, in the wake of pandemic changes, consumer chat apps have experienced massive growth in usage for businesses. A great example is Whatsapp as it stands out with a growing user base of nearly 5 billion active users.

However, you have to think: Is it safe to use consumer chat apps and do they not carry a security risk? Do they have all the necessary functionalities? Do they encourage collaboration? In this case, WhatsApp is designed for consumer use, and when it comes to commercial use, it lacks significant functionalities.

Choosing an application for internal communication is very important and must be adapted to the company. Why? Good business, customer satisfaction and a good working environment come from internal processes. Providing employees with optimal solutions will help them do their work in less time and communicate more effectively (and therefore more consistently with each other).

So what should be taken into account when choosing?

Administrative controls

The administrator must help implement policies and streamline internal processes. For this reason, the solutions must provide you with an administration panel. Where you can manage users, configure access to each module, manage integrations, track and download organization reports, customize the domain and email, adjust organization policies, edit profile information, among others.

Chat applications have very basic administration capabilities: restrict messages in a group, add and remove members and maintain the company description.

Data privacy and security

The security aspect tops the checklist when it comes to looking for any tool or software for the workplace.

A good example of an enterprise application is Zoho Cliq, which has features such as SSL encryption, allowing you to track and manage how internal and third-party tools access your data.

In addition, with features such as two-factor authentication, encryption of data in transit and at rest, GDPR compliance and secret chat (chat with its history disabled), Cliq protects the organization's data from potential loss and attacks.

Another secure enterprise application par excellence is Google Chat, where data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

What is the difference with chat applications? Many of them have end-to-end encryption. However, they are not secure once decrypted on your device.

Collaboration in the workplace

When your company works remotely, communication is even more essential. The tool you use should not only connect you, but also improve team collaboration and organization.

In consumer chat apps, no matter how connected you are, it's not in an organized way. All your conversations are listed in a single view, which makes access difficult and collaboration harder to structure. In addition, any employee can often create a group without the knowledge of their administrator.

In this case, enterprise tools like Zoho Cliq or Google Chat, support channels/rooms by topic/level, video conferencing, broadcasting, screen sharing, message searching, file sharing. It also ensures that you don't miss the little things about working from an office, such as seeing who is available to talk and video conferencing with large numbers of users (depending on versions).

Project management capabilities

The workplace tool must support efficient project management, from project planning to execution and results tracking. In addition, it should keep all your employees up-to-date on the status and aligned with the team.

With Google Chat task and document management this is possible. In Zoho Cliq, integrations with both Zoho and third-party applications are allowed to manage projects.

Increased productivity

The chosen tool should help improve individual productivity and also allow adding more functionalities to increase it. In the business applications mentioned above, those features are the reminders/tasks they allow you to create. You can set and assign reminders for yourself and co-workers. Also, thanks to its integration with Calendar, you can schedule events and reminders to them, synchronizing your activity with that of the team or external people.

When adding functionality, Bots from other applications can be incorporated to quickly access data and automate routine activities.

Separate business and personal communication

When using a consumer chat application such as WhatsApp for business and personal communications, a person is more vulnerable to distractions and miscommunications. On WhatsApp, you can switch between work and personal conversations with a single click, which increases the risk of getting distracted and even mistakenly sending a personal message to a business chat, or vice versa.

On the other hand, by having an exclusively business application, the limits are clear and allow to adapt to the context,

Conclusion

In the market there are countless business applications for internal communication (some also allow external communication). They must be adapted to the processes of the company and what the company wants. In Etixen we recommend Google Chat (Included in the Google collaboration suite) as it has several interconnected applications for professional collaboration, including corporate mail. Also, we recommend Zoho Cliq, an enterprise application that connects with the Zoho suite seamlessly, to have all the business in one place. The choice between them will depend on the functionalities required by the company and the current work environment. Do you want to know more? Contact us at