Business Chat Apps & How They Fare Well in the Millennial Generation

Business chat applications are notches ahead than ordinary chat apps. They provide utilities that help employees get work done on the go with improved productivity.

According to this Forbes blog, there are 3 things that millennials (people born in between 1980 to 2000) want from their work.

• 1. Work life balance
• 2. Instant feedback
• 3. Problem-solving

As you can see more money and a job title has gone out of the window as priorities. Today’s workforce is individuals who want everything on-the-go at the place-they-go on anything that they use.

Desktop computers are so ancient now. A remote worker, Digital Nomad, Work From Homework philosophies are more attractive to millennials. In other words, they want freedom and the flexibility to work from remote locations where their life is happening.

But, there is a problem.

The problem of communication. For any successful business, communication is the pillar upon which the business stands. Remote working can bring communication in the crosshairs.

Of course, there is a need to build a chat app like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and the likes which help bridge the communication gap. Still, they serve like kitchen knives when you want to to go to war. The features and capabilities of an average chat app are simply insufficient for business communication.

Why Ordinary Chat Apps are Unfit for Business Communication?

• 1. Extensive file-sharing, call to actions, organizing capabilities are not possible
• 2. There is a ceiling limit to the number of users who can collaborate
• 3. Biggest threat: Security, privacy & monitoring
• 4. There is too much clutter that distracts and disturbs the flow of communications
• 5. Organizing and bringing every departmental user under a common roof is not easy
• 6. All users cannot be expected to have the same kind of device, app or accessibility

And an endless list of other drawbacks.

The need of the hour is business chat applications. Business instant messaging apps that are fitted with additional capabilities that turn them into desktop machines that you can carry on your pockets.

Business Chat App: Best of Both Worlds

Business chat apps bring together the best of chat apps and high-end business facilities within a mobile interface. They can be tailor-made with extensive features that help employees on the go to get things done without having to wait for accessibility to a desktop computer or a laptop.

Some ways chat app for business make a difference from ordinary chat apps include:

Channelized Feed of Chats

Each member of a team needs access to specific content and information. But, not everyone in the organization needs to know about it. Secondly, it must be easy for users to quickly reach for a content or a chat where a resolution arrived at earlier. Dedicated channels or groups help make that task easier.

For instance, there could be a separate channel that discusses the ongoing marketing campaign and its tracking. Selected members of the marketing team and business development team can be granted access to a specific channel in the business chat software that feeds such information.

On the Cloud, Over the Air

The physical presence of remote employees is hard to come by. Secondly, this is the era of freelancers. More than one-third of the American working population is made up of freelancers (Forbes).

The need of the hour is a business live chat app that can let people share documents, files, images, videos and other document types over the air onto storage spaces hosted in the cloud. An ordinary chat app has limited functionalities for such kind of file-sharing activities. It is here that a best group chat app steps in and proves its mettle.

Secured as a Fortress

On 16th March 2017, the world woke up to a news they never ever wanted to hear. A security bug in WhatsApp exposed millions of user accounts exposed to hackers. Now, imagine the aftermath if an organization was using WhatsApp for their official mode of communication. The business could have exposed critical customer information, vendors, contracts, employee records and what not. Rebounding from such a tragedy is next to impossible.

However, business chat applications come with inbuilt security systems like HMAC encryption, two-factor authentication, etc. which help in thwarting security vulnerabilities right at the source. Furthermore, it is always possible to integrate the chat app with additional security measures like minimum password length, fixed password life, etc. for additional security. All this adds to the worthiness of a chat app for business as an ideal solution for business-grade communication and collaboration where confidentiality is of utmost importance.

Create Meeting, Poll, Event, etc.

According to this Muse article, we spend more than 4 hours per week preparing status updates. Isn’t that shocking? Almost half a working day is spent on archiving old data. However, a best business chat app with smart search filters can make things easier by allowing users to search for files, chat messages or even location pins using filters for messages, groups and file types.

Business Instant messaging apps also allow users to create new events, polls, meetings and other unique settings to invite participation from selected members of the organization. It is literally like running a meeting without having anybody to be present physically. Saves time, effort and also cut down on carbon footprint.

That brings us to the close of why business chat apps are a cut above ordinary chat apps.