I’ve been around the corporate block a few times, in a couple of different companies. That kind of experience comes with a certain misery when it comes to adapting to whatever internal chat tool a company decides to use. I’ve seen everything from serious enterprise-grade solutions that demand a fully locked-up laptop with TPM, to unsecured Viber group chats that had like a hundred people in them.
It’d be great if everyone used the same thing, but the reality is that every company has its own needs and use cases. Sometimes, a feature might be present in one tool that doesn’t exist in another. Other times, it’s support for APIs or third-party integration. And sometimes it’s just about cost - if there are free tools out there, why bother with extra spending?
Here are some of the tools I’ve encountered in the wild most frequently, and what makes each one tick.
Slack
Slack is one of the best-known enterprise collaboration tools on the market. It’s got a wide array of features, including built-in project management, hashtags to organise messages, separate teams, and an excellent message archive that’s really easy to search through. It also has robust video and audio conference call features for meetings.
But the real meat lies in its extremely deep integration with a lot of third parties, such as Google Drive, GitHub, Jira, and ZenDesk. With a few clicks and a bit of setup, you can transform Slack into anything you need it to be - whether that’s a customer service platform, a GitHub collaboration centre, or an incident response hub.
Slack’s very similar to a more casual chat tool, Discord, which is more closely associated with the video gaming and tabletop gaming community. If you’ve ever had experience with Discord, you’ll feel right at home with Slack.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has most of the core features of the other popular platforms. Teams, chat archives, conference calls and third-party integration are all part and parcel of the Teams experience. It’s nothing particularly special in that regard.
However, far more important than anything else is itsfirst-party integration. That’s because Teams comes with all Office 365 Business Premium subscriptions and higher, negating the need to pay an additional fee if you already have this subscription for your business. It also allows you to link Outlook emails and collaborate directly on Office documents right from within the tool.
If you’re already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, Teams is almost a no-brainer to use.
G Suite
A direct competitor to Microsoft Teams, G Suite combines a suite of communications tools with collaborative software, conference calls, and excellent security options. It also has 24⁄7 enterprise support and robust administrative tools, as well as some of the best search tools in the industry - only fitting, coming from Google!
Everything in G Suite takes place from within your web browser, so you won’t need to fiddle with any enterprise software installation.
Facebook Workplace
I know a startup, about a hundred people in size, that uses Facebook Workplace as its primary collaboration tool. Looking over any employee’s shoulder, you’d think that everyone spent the majority of their time at work on social media - a testament to how closely Workplace resembles the regular user side of Facebook.
The salient advantage to this is familiarity. There are over 2.5 billion monthly users on Facebook; chances are, your employees will already be accustomed to the Facebook interface, and won’t need a lot of training or adaptation time to get used to Workplace.
Workplace also integrates with a whole host of enterprise tools, including Office and G Suite, so you won’t be wanting when it comes to your collaborative needs. And there’s even a free tier with all the core features so you can see if Workplace works for you.
Consumer Instant Messaging Platforms
WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, and other IM services aren’t quite workplace chat platforms, but they’re often pressed into service as such. Many companies have informal chat groups that they use to communicate internally, and some even use them for official comms.
It’s important to understand that these tools might not necessarily meet the standards for enterprise chat, whether in features or security. That said, their convenience and ease of use are too great to ignore!
And it’s not like they’re deficient in all areas. For example, Signal got a reputation for security, thanks to end-to-end encryption on its calls and secret chats, as well as identity management.
Meanwhile, Telegram is actually a pretty darn robust messenger platform. With moderated groups, reliable cloud-based message storage and searching, and even one-way announcement channels, it fulfils a lot of basic needs for small and medium-sized companies.
With a little investment, you can use the Telegram API to make some very interesting bots that can assist with group management, gather data for analytics, and even create customer service tickets. It involves a bit of dev work, and you’re still limited by the API and the built-in features of Telegram, but there’s a lot of potential there.