Virtual Connections: Your Guide to Business Collaboration Tools

Over 75% of employers believe that teamwork and collaboration are significant aspects of any business’s success?

Have you noticed that the modern business workplace keeps changing? Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies in different industries were looking to change their workplaces and create a more dynamic, inclusive, and comfortable environment for their employees.

Companies are now working towards the same goals- succeeding and retaining their employees. But is collaboration the ultimate secret to success? The answer is yes. 

With the right business collaboration tools, you can easily foster teamwork and make your employees’ work easy. In this piece, we will guide you to choose the best business collaboration tools for your company. Read on below for more information:

Identify Departments and Areas That Need the Tools

Business collaboration tools can efficiently benefit your company. And the first step to choosing the right tool is to identify the user and business needs to determine the best tools. Whether you’re running a larger enterprise or a start-up company, you probably have numerous pain points with varying levels of priority.

You should identify these pain points and use them as a guiding tool. Take some time to research, talk to your employees, and consult your customers. When communicating with these groups, ensure you ask them open-ended questions that allow them to answer and provide you with important information about their wishes and opinions.

What do they think about your business? How can you improve service offerings? What can you do to make your employees’ lives easier and more comfortable?

Asking such questions helps you better understand your company’s pain points and areas that require improvement. After collecting the data, start by organizing these needs based on priority.

For example, suppose your customers have constantly complained that they aren’t getting the right products or services. On the other hand, your customer service team keeps complaining that the customers are not sending their feedback on time. In that case, you could be dealing with a communication issue. 

This is often a common issue for companies whose main communication channel is email. If this is a significant issue for your company, you can look for a collaboration tool that allows instant communication between clients and your customer service team.

Not only will this solve the problem and increase your customer satisfaction rate, but it also ensures that employees can do their job efficiently without any delays. Whatever problems your business is facing, you should always look for the right tools to solve the problem.

Involve Users in the Choosing Process

Never start by picking random tools that you feel might work for your company. This isn’t the time for guessing games. Consider getting users involved in the business collaboration tools choosing process.

The idea is to ask the users their opinions, sit down and compare different tools. This helps you get the perfect tool for the business while sealing up any loopholes for complaints that might arise later. Involving users in the selection process also enables you to prepare the field for the tool’s deployment.

You can be sure of a faster onboarding process with minimal problems and incidents by doing this. You will also be assured of less room for costly software rejection. The best way to get users involved is by using a survey.

Consider preparing standardized questionnaires and share them with the users to get feedback on different tools you’re considering. But keep in mind that most times, people are biased and can choose tools based on familiarity. Therefore, it’s essential to provide your employees and customers with background knowledge about different tools on your list.

This knowledge helps them understand what a tool is capable of, its features, and how it compares with other tools in the market. This allows your employees to choose the right tool that’s more likely to help them, making it an effective process.

Do Your Homework

Researching more about different business development software tools in the market is key. You can even hire a third-party company to help you conduct interviews and systematic surveys with users and check the available software tools. At the end of the process, you will have information about what the users want and how different tools can help your business.

When you’re about to make a decision on the right business collaboration tool, ensure it has the following qualities:

• Key security features
• Clear pricing without any additional hidden costs
• Come with a mobile application that allows your users to collaborate on the go
• Requires minimal training during the onboarding process
• It’s the most cost-effective option
• The software is intuitive and has a simple user interface
• It comes with good quality customer support
• Offers a free trial for your business to test out the tool

Choosing the right business communication tool for your company isn’t a walk in the park. You need to ensure that the software has all the above qualities and more based on your needs and preferences. In most cases, the above criteria are easy to find on many business collaboration tools in the market today.

However, ensure you only choose the right tool for your business and employees. Check with them and find out which tool most users prefer and why they chose it, then give it to them.

Check the Business Collaboration Tool’s Software Compatibility

At this point in your journey, you probably already have a list of software tools that you’ve shortlisted. The shortlisted tools probably meet your business needs and have been accepted by the users. But before settling on the final pick, there is one last thing to consider; its compatibility with your existing software.

Check whether deploying the business collaboration tool with your current software establishment is possible. The last thing you need is to pay for a tool that isn’t compatible with your business software.

Will the tool you chose easily integrate and work with other existing systems and software in your company? How does it fit in? Do you need to manually transfer all the data from your existing systems to the new tool, or is it easy to integrate?

No matter how cheap the tool is, don’t pay for something that makes your employees’ work harder. Ensure it easily integrates with your systems to make everything seamless. Even if you will have to pay a little extra, it’s best to settle for software that has all the features your business needs and offers you great functionality.

If you’re looking for a great way to increase your business networking, consider working with Collaborate to help you increase your customer base. Collaborate offers businesses a connection to a vast network of other companies in the same industry. This way, your business can easily compete with major brands in the market at the local level.

Measure the Tool’s Impact

Any new business networking solution has an expected impact on the company. Whether the software’s desired result is directly related to how employees communicate or increased productivity, it’s essential to keep track of its impact.

The primary objective is to settle for a tool that makes your work easier, not the other way around. Below are steps to help you measure the expected changes brought by your business collaboration tool:

• Involve the evaluation stakeholders and find out if they are in alignment with the intended outcome and impact
• Assess the initial design and pinpoint gaps in the program design
• Conduct a more focused evaluation to avoid collecting more information than you need
• Confirm that the resources you provided met expectations
• Determine the proper data collection methods
• Plan the right approach to communicate your findings

Once you implement the business tool, it’s time to check how it impacts your business. Has the tool made it easier for your employees to carry out specific tasks? How has it improved the overall productivity of your business?

But you need to involve your users from the first step to the final one. If users are engaged in the evaluation of the tool, then you will have an easier time, and the decision will be simpler. After considering all the above tips, it should be easier for you and our team to find the right business collaboration tool based on your needs and preferences.

Find the Right Business Collaboration Tools Today

Whether you have remote working conditions or your employees are working from the office, it’s essential to find the right business collaboration tools to help them make work easier. Business collaboration is now a significant aspect of running any successful venture. The collaboration tools you choose can make or break your employees’ productivity resulting in losses.

Canvassing the market for the best business collaboration tools isn’t an easy process. You need to identify your business needs and areas that could greatly benefit from the collaboration. Then, involve your employees in the choosing process and check out different tools’ software compatibility.

Did you enjoy this article? Check out other posts on this site for more informative tips.