Keeping your team on the same page is a necessity, especially in today’s office where you may have team members spread across the globe or have half your team telecommuting to work every day. The traditional office where everyone can gather in a conference room is becoming rarer and rarer, and many of the techniques managers once used to keep everyone productive and efficient is no longer applicable.
Managers have had to learn new ways of keeping their teams updated with the latest information, and many have turned to different apps to do so. But there are thousands of different apps out there for the office—how do you know which ones are going to help keep your team moving forward and which are a waste of time? While this list may not include every amazing app out there, it does list 6 of the best apps for team collaboration, and that’s a good place to start.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a file-sharing app that lets you easily drag and drop documents, PDFs, presentations, and any other type of file from your computer onto a shared folder. Only those who have access to that Dropbox can retrieve the files, so they’re safe and secure. Dropbox is a necessity when you’re sharing files that are too big for email, which includes many large images, videos, and technical documents full of graphs and diagrams. You can also use Dropbox as a personal backup system or as an alternative to using a flash drive.
Dropbox is free to use, and the free version gives you 2 GB of storage space. If that’s not enough, you can upgrade to one of two different options:
- The professional version is $9.99 a month. It gives you 1 TB of storage plus a number of other options.
- For business users, $15 per user per month gives you access to Dropbox Business, which has an unlimited amount of storage plus priority support.
If you don’t want to pay, you can complete five of the seven different “Getting Started” items to unlock an additional 250 MB of storage. It’s not much, but it helps.
Flow
Flow is a project management tool. It is a simple app that doesn’t clutter its interface with anything extra. It focuses purely on project flow. You can create a folder for each project, make lists for each task under that project, and assign those tasks to your team. Tasks are assigned through email, so even team members who don’t have Flow will still be able to receive tasks and stay in the loop. The app’s activity log keeps you and everyone else up to date on what each person has done and where the overall project stands.
Dialpad
Dialpad is a Voice over IP app that allows your team members to stay connected with each other and with your customers no matter where they are by providing them with a business phone number that travels with them. This number can be routed to their cell phones, tablets, or computers. There’s no need for an employee to be tied to their office phone or to have a separate work cell phone, nor will they have to use their personal cell phone number for work. You also won’t have to spend the money installing a traditional landline phone system in your office or have someone on hand to troubleshoot it.
Google Apps
Google Apps for Work gives you access to Gmail, Drive, Sheets, Docs, Slides, and Google Calendar. This makes collaborating easier and keeps everyone on the team up to date on what’s going on. All of these apps can be accessed from multiple devices, allowing employees to keep in contact with others no matter what they’re using or where they are. When collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, or presentations, every user is denoted separately, making it easy to see who has made edits or left comments.
Google Hangouts is another popular Google app for those who have employees who telecommute or work remotely on the job site. It lets you create virtual meetings using any device.
Evernote Business
Evernote Business is designed to make it easy to share knowledge between departments, offices, or remote workers. You can create information cards for employees, share notes on where clients are in the conversion process, and more. It’s also easy to analyze customer feedback and incorporate said feedback into your marketing strategies. Any Evernote account can be upgraded to a business account, which also gives you access to all of the features available to premium Evernote users. This includes 2 GB of storage space per employee plus shared space for your Evernote notebooks.
Salesforce
Salesforce offers a number of different solutions for your business, all of which are available through the cloud. The Salesforce CRM program lets you view where each sales team rank, creates a list of prioritized leads, and easily find your customer’s contact information and even view their social media profiles to see how they’re interacting with you.
Then there’s the Salesforce Social app. It lets you easily manage all of your social media campaigns. You can designate when your posts go out, what your specific audience is, and more. The app can be configured to only run ads that perform the best, maximizing your ad campaign budget.
Finally, the Salesforce Service Cloud is their app for customer service. It provides a centralized hub for all of your customer support. Each ticket can be directed to the appropriate place, escalated if necessary, and worked on collaboratively by various support team members. The app even lets employees’ video chat with customers to help solve more complicated problems. Once the problem has been solved, customers can leave feedback on how good their customer service was.
Do you use these Apps?
Do you use any of these apps for your teams? If so, which ones do you use, and what do you think of them? Do you use any other apps that we haven’t listed here? We’d love to share them with our readers!
