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13th Dec, 2023
Team chat apps are useful for giving a team space for all communication about tasks, projects and business. By using a team messaging app you can keep everything in one place and organise key information to look back on.
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It can be really difficult to gather entire teams to hold meetings to chat about projects, tasks and business. Especially now we have remote working, hybrid teams and even team members who live in different countries.
Either way, you can appreciate how hard it is to communicate with your team effectively and store key information in one place. Without a team communication tool messages are lost, and forgotten and tasks may also fall under.
That's when team chat apps come into play. With a team chat app, you can create a shared space to communicate about everything from daily tasks and larger projects to planning holidays.
A team chat application is ironically more than just a place for team members to send messages to each other. A team chat application allows you to communicate effectively in one space with other members while managing tasks, planning projects, arranging video calls and even collaborating on team documents together.
So essentially, a team chat app is more like a central hub for all members of the team to talk about projects, ask questions, stay on top of tasks and collaborate securely and effectively.
Now you know what a team chat app is and how they can improve team communication, what do they need to contain?
It's a good idea to think about how you want to improve or expand on your current team messaging system. Maybe you already have an app for communication but need it to go a bit further with project planning and video calls.
Some of these features are what you can most commonly find in team communication apps.
Now, not all team chat apps need to have all of the following features, this is just an overview of what they can contain.
You might be dreading the thought of having to use another application to streamline your team and workflow, but it's not that bad. There are quite a few benefits to using a team chat app.
Here's our list of the best team chat apps for making group conversations much easier.
In no particular order, let's dive into the best team chat apps:
Microsoft Teams is probably one of the best-known and most well-used team communication tools. Chances are you use some Microsoft tools already, or you know enough about Microsoft to get started within the ecosystem. This makes using Microsoft Teams super easy to get started with.
You can host meetings inside teams, making it easier to gather people in one place to communicate about tasks. You can also host meetings whilst using other Microsoft tools such as Powerpoint to give presentations and share your screen.
Other team chat features with Microsoft Teams include the ability to make and receive voice calls and use AI-generated notes from meetings and chats. You can also create shared spaces and integrate tools such as Microsoft Loop to further collaborate and manage projects.
Slack is another well-known tool for team communication. It also offers ways for task management and organised channels to create a better system for working. With Slack, you can use generative AI to merge tasks from other productivity tools to be then organised for you.
But in terms of team chatting abilities, there are quite a few things you can do. One of the biggest features of team communication inside Slack is the use of Channels and Huddles. You can create channels for specific teams to share information and chat, you can then quickly create a Huddle to launch either a video call or audio call and share screens at the same time.
Slack provides a popular place to bring teams and tasks together in one organised space.
There's a lot to dive into with Hive since it's way more than just a team communication tool. You can manage entire projects from start to finish with tons of added features to help you do so. For now, let's just take a look at how Hive works for team collaboration and communication in a chat.
It's easy to quickly create chats for teams, groups of people or 1:1's, inside a chat you can share messages, change your availability, reply to specific messages and leave emoji reactions. You can also enter video meetings directly from chats to talk about projects and take notes if needed. If you aren't loving the chat inside Hive, you can use shortcuts to direct video calls over to Zoom or Google Meet.
Finally, teams can go from conversation to collaborating on notes in real time. You can see who is working on a document and where, you can also perform these tasks whilst in a meeting or chat.
ClickUp is another application in this list that is way more than just a team communication tool. With ClickUp you can also manage projects, tasks, notes, teams and much more. However this list is about team chats, so here's how ClickUp helps with that.
Within team chats inside ClickUp, you can assign tasks directly to the person you are talking with, this speeds up so many processes and is a good way to delegate tasks with additional information alongside. It also gives the other person a chance to ask questions.
You can also send and share attachments inside the chat, these can be documents, webpages, spreadsheets and much more, all conveniently together inside a chat for everyone to engage with. You can also edit your messages with rich text formatting and chat alongside work.
Spike replaces the need for boring email threads with chat, notes, tasks and documents in one space. Emailing with teams can take up a lot of time and isn't always the best method of communication. Spike has created a platform to chat with your team and manage conversations with the help of AI.
With Spike, you can also create channels to discuss work, and you can send attachments inside such as files and documents to collaborate on tasks and projects together. Create Groups for private discussions within teams, with groups, history isn't available for anyone else to see.
Overall, Spike presents an easy-to-use conversational email application to replace the need for email threads to create a faster and more convenient way to communicate within teams.
Flock is a team communication and team collaboration app to streamline workflows and create a centralised hub for messages, files, to-do lists and more. With Flock, you can create channels of communication, both private and public. This just means the history of the conversation is kept to just who is in the chat and for conversations not everyone needs to be in.
You can also quickly set up video conferencing to hold meetings wherever you and your team are, and send audio notes for an even faster way to communicate with each other. Finally, Flock also has a super powerful search, just type in some words and messages, tasks and notes will show up instantly.
Team chat applications will improve team communication as it gives a base for all messages, information, files, documents and more. You can look at a team chat app kind of like a home hub for everything your team needs to move smoothly through projects and tasks.
It's also a lot faster than sending emails. By communicating through email only, messages can get lost, or forgotten about and questions may not be answered for a few days, with team chat apps messaging is instant.
Team chat applications can also replace wasting time organising and arranging meetings. If the app has calendar integration you may be able to auto-schedule meetings to find the best times or even hop on calls right away.
Yes, although most team chat apps will work for remote and hybrid teams. Specifically, the likes of Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Slack are great easy-to-use tools for remote working teams.
Any kind of team can use any kind of team chat app, however, it just depends on what your needs are and if you are looking for a place just for messaging or for all-round project management.
If you want a space to replace emailing, the likes of Flock and Spike may be a great choice. This makes messaging easier, and smoother and you can hop on video calls without wasting any time. They also allow you to send files, and notes and perform some basic project management.
If you want a more all-round application for team communication and project planning, then you could do it with an app like Hive or ClickUp. Both of these tools provide a real in-depth space for all your project planning needs from start to finish, including an easier team messaging system.
Combine tasks, calendar, meeting booking links & task consolidation into one.
Bring tasks from ClickUp, Notion, Gmail, Todoist & more in Akiflow for organizing in one.
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