Empowering Streamlined Team Chat at Work

The modern workforce relies on a wide range of communications solutions, including phone, email, and video conferencing. However, the ability to instantly and efficiently share information by chat is critical for any organization, regardless of its size or industry.

Woman writing at office desk

A business chat app creates an atmosphere where employees can engage one-to-one or in groups and freely exchange information outside of scheduled meetings and calls, providing opportunities for enhanced communication and collaboration, especially with a hybrid workforce.

 

Zoom Team Chat, our free chat solution for the Zoom platform, couples the cutting-edge features your team needs to get more done together with the intuitive experience you’ve come to expect from Zoom.

A dedicated space for workplace chat / communication

Doctor on phone

With more organizations moving toward a hybrid work model where some employees work in the office and others work offsite, the ability to instantly connect with one or more colleagues to efficiently send and receive information and resources is more important than ever. With tons of daily meetings, coworkers in different locations on a daily basis, and fewer opportunities to communicate with senior leadership, these hybrid workers need fast, effective, and intuitive communications solutions that help them get more done together.

 

Business chats are very similar to a group chat in that multiple people can type messages, send files, links, and other resources, and add other people to the chat, but it often takes place on a workspace chat solution. Instant messaging at work enables employees to streamline collaboration by giving them an ever-present space where they can send messages, files, links, and other resources to each other instantly in an intuitive and flexible interface.

 

And the best part of a company group chat is that it enables asynchronous collaboration — there’s no need to schedule a meeting or hop on the phone, just send your message and let the recipient respond in their own time! This is especially critical for global teams, who need to communicate easily but cannot always respond as they are in different time zones.

What are the important features for work chats?

Group sitting in Lobby

Ease of use is one of the most important features of a corporate chat tool. Leading chat solutions allow you to easily message your contacts by simply typing in their name, selecting the desired contact, typing your message, and hitting send. However, they also have other features that are critical to enhancing productivity and protecting communications, such as:

  • Seamless organization

    An enterprise-grade chat solution allows you to easily organize your chat conversations manually, or by starring your favorite or most-visited conversations for instant access.

  • Enhanced flexibility

    A leading chat solution gives you greater flexibility with the ability to access chats and message others using a wide range of solutions, including mobile devices, laptops, and desktop computers.

  • Ability to scale

    A chat solution is only valuable to your organization if it can scale and grow with your organization. Be sure to choose a work chat solution that you can easily deploy and implement within any size workforce — you don’t want to limit your potential growth with a substandard chat solution!

  • Robust security

    Sensitive internal information is often shared over chat, so the ability to implement specific security settings is critical, especially for regulated industries such as government, finance, and healthcare.

  • Cutting-edge features

    Features like video voicemail, the ability to send screenshots and voice messages, and access to solutions like a digital whiteboard directly within your chat solution will enhance collaboration by giving your team the tools they need to closely collaborate before and after your meetings.

  • Unified communications

    Your teams need to access their communications solutions easily and efficiently — with a unified communications platform, they’ll have access to all of their daily communications solutions in one intuitive client.

How do you use team chat effectively?

Man typing Team Chat

The effectiveness of your group chats at work is highly dependent on how chats are structured, used, and monitored. Here are some rules and practices that you can follow to enhance collaboration and communication in your group chat apps for work:

  • Designate a specific objective for your company chat

    Be sure to clearly describe the purpose of the group chat and who should be included to the members of the chat to avoid confusion, provide a focus for the conversation, and streamline the exchange of information and resources.

  • Name your chat

    Creating an accurate and descriptive title for your team work chat will help your teammates easily find the conversation in the chat UI, providing a resource where they can find specific information such as project or policy updates.

  • Check a contact’s presence before messaging

    Each contact will have a status indicator next to their name, indicating whether they are available, in a meeting, in a calendar event, or offline. By checking their presence status before messaging, you can ensure that you don’t disrupt them during an important presentation or event.

  • Be concise

    Work chats are meant for efficient and instant communication, so be clear and concise with your messages to maintain effectiveness — no one likes reading through a ton of messages or long and drawn-out sentences!

  • Clearly title resources and files

    When sending a resource in a team work chat such as a link, file, image, or video, be sure to clearly title and indicate what the resource includes — this makes it easier for your chat contacts to find it later using the search bar in your chat solution.

  • Set boundaries

    It can be tempting to respond to that message from a coworker late at night or before work starts, but that can leave you burnt out and exhausted. By setting your team work chat presence to “Do Not Disturb” in the evenings and before work, you can ensure you aren’t being constantly bombarded with messages.

  • Create a space for communication with senior managers

    Creating a space where your coworkers can easily communicate with your senior leadership and encouraging your leadership to be active in this space helps keep employees informed about the company’s plans and feel more connected to their managers and leaders.

  • Use company chat to streamline collaboration

    Instead of constantly scheduling meetings to connect with coworkers, use chat instead. By creating a chat channel to inform teammates, kick off brainstorming, or even just share relevant information or resources can help avoid unnecessary meetings and move projects along faster.

  • Get to know your coworkers

    Starting channels or chat groups where you can discuss shared hobbies and passions with other coworkers provides a space for you to get to know your coworkers better, which is especially important for hybrid workforces that may never get the chance to meet in person.

Zoom’s team chat features and more

man on couch with laptop desk

Zoom Team Chat, Zoom’s workspace chat solution, offers a range of enterprise-grade features to help you enhance productivity and streamline communication. This includes:

  • Presence indicator

    Instantly see whether your contacts are in a meeting, calendar event, out of office, or simply unavailable with presence indicators, which appear next to the contact’s name.

  • Apps and integrations

    Zoom gives you access to your favorite workspace solutions within Zoom’s unified communications platform, allowing you to leverage integrations with SalesforceJiraGitHubMio, and more directly in Zoom Team Chat.

  • Advanced search functionality

    Easily find specific messages, contacts, files, or mentions of you or your contacts using the advanced search function in Zoom Team Chat.

  • Sharing files and other resources

    You can seamlessly share and view files, videos, documents, links, and more in chat, making it easy to get everyone on the same page.

  • Enhanced security options

    System admins can easily view and change security settings, such as how long chat messages are saved in the cloud, whether internal employees can share files and communicate with external stakeholders, and more.

  • Streamlined organization

    With the ability to delete, favorite, or organize your chats and channels into customizable folders, always easily find the conversation you’re looking for.

  • Customized notifications

    Customize your alerts so you only receive notifications from important conversations. You can also disable notifications during calendar events and meetings, as well as during designated Do Not Disturb hours.

  • Unrivaled flexibility

    With the Zoom app for desktop and mobile devices, access your chat solution at the office, on the road, or while working from home.

  • Cross-product functionality

    Streamline your day-to-day collaboration with the ability to easily share Zoom Whiteboards within Zoom Team Chat, and seamlessly elevate a Zoom Team Chat session into a Zoom Phone call or into a Zoom Meeting at the click of a button.

Stay connected through Zoom

man using desk phone

Zoom Team Chat’s greatest strength is that it seamlessly integrates with the rest of Zoom’s enterprise-grade unified communications platform — our video conferencing solution, Zoom Meetings, and our cloud phone solution, Zoom Phone. This enables you to launch Zoom Meetings and Zoom Phone calls with your contacts right from the chat application, giving you the ability to instantly enhance collaboration when the need arises with features like video voicemail, screen sharing, and more.

 

Zoom Whiteboard also lives in the Zoom client, empowering you to bring your ideas to life on a collaborative and expandable digital canvas before, during, and after your meetings. And the best part? You can share whiteboards directly within Zoom Team Chat!

 

If you want to bring your thoughts, ideas, and information to the world, Zoom Webinars and Zoom Events are perfect solutions for creating one-to-many events like all-hands, conferences, podcasts, and more. Create engaging events and sessions for attendees and create opportunities for deeper interaction by enabling them to interact in our digital Expo!

 

Be sure to schedule a free live demo with our sales team to learn more about how Zoom Team Chat and our unified communications platform can help your team streamline communication and get more done together.