The importance of effective communication at the workplace cannot be overstated.One recent study by Fierce Inc. found that nearly 86% of workplace failures can be attributed to poor collaboration and communication systems.
While setting up a new office can seem like a daunting task in itself, ensuring a proper office communication system is critical to its operational efficiency
The Two Components Of Office Communication
When it comes to planning an office communication strategy, there are two components to establish:
External communication: All conversations held by your team with external stakeholders – customers, investors, and the authorities
Internal communication: Collaborative communication among various team members and department
Some communication tools like a phone number or a postal address are a practical necessity to operate a business smoothly. These public-facing communication channels are necessary to open a bank account, obtain credit, or list with directories.
However, other communication tools – especially those meant for internal communication – are chosen from a cost and efficiency perspective.
What To Look For In An Office Communication Tool
There are a number of different factors you could consider while picking the right communication tools for your business.
Cost: This is especially important if you are a bootstrapper or young business
Professional: Important for public-facing communication tools (example: a toll-free number)
Portable: Must offer seamless transition to a different service provider, if required
Cloud-based: Makes investment in expensive hardware unnecessary
Mobile-friendly: Important if you have team members on the field who cannot use a computer
Asynchronous: Quite helpful if you have remote teams logging in from across different timezones
Video-friendly: Again, quite handy for remote or hybrid teams
List Of The Best Office Communication Tools
Here is a list of the top office communication tools for American small business owners. These tools are cost-effective, mostly cloud-based, and help provide your business with a professional outlook to the external stakeholders.
1. Unitel Voice – Business Phone System
Unitel Voice is built for small businesses that need a professional business phone system without having to deal with complex setups.
With Unitel Voice, you get a cloud-based virtual phone number setup that includes all the necessary features that you want in a business phone – a virtual auto-attendant, call forwarding, call recording, department extensions, business texting, among others.
Why small businesses like Unitel Voice
- Toll-free number access
- Local numbers for every geography (in USA and Canada)
- Number porting facility
- Deskphone setup
- Conference calling
Pricing
Unitel Voice has a starting price of $9.99 per month that offers 500 monthly minutes and 1 phone number. Higher priced plans (starting at $24.99 per month) offer users unlimited users and minutes.
2. Slack – Internal Communication
Slack is a cloud-based internal communication platform that lets users create dedicated channels for different projects or teams. This allows workers to collaborate as a team or have one-on-one conversations with other members of the team.
Why small businesses like Slack
- All conversations in one place
- Real-time communication without meetings
- Organized conversations, grouped into channels and threads
- Easy to scale
- Low barrier to entry (minimal training required, and easy to set up)
Pricing
Slack has a free plan available that has all the core features enabled. However, conversations older than 90 days are not available to these users. Paid plans start at $7.25 per person and include features like group meetings, unlimited message history, unlimited app integrations, AI workflows, and daily recaps.
3. ActiveCampaign – External Communication & Marketing Automation
ActiveCampaign started as an email marketing software but today, it offers a suite of marketing automation tools to help small business owners run sophisticated marketing campaigns without complex setups.
The entire marketing automation setup is AI-driven and lets small business owners without the time and skills to use an intuitive drag-and-drop setup and generative AI to set up automated email workflows
Why small businesses like GetResponse
- AI product recommendations based on customer behavior
- AI writing assistant
- 950+ third-party app integrations
- 250+ predesigned templates
Pricing
ActiveCampaign offers a 30-day free trial to all their customers. Paid plans start at $15/month for the Starter plan with a list size of 1000 subscribers. Higher priced plans are available for larger size mail list lists and for advanced features. ActiveCampaign also offers a discount on some annual billing plans.
4. Kommunicate – AI-Powered Live Chat & Customer Support
Kommunicate is an AI-powered live chat and chatbot platform that helps businesses automate customer support, reduce response times, and deliver 24/7 assistance across web, WhatsApp, and in-app channels.
With the Kommunicate Customer Service AI system, you can train your bot to act like your best customer service representatives, reducing first response time by almost 90%, while improving customer satisfaction by 50%.
Why small businesses like Kommunicate
- AI based email ticketing
- Chatbot builder
- Voice AI
- Integration with popular customer support platforms like Zendesk and Freshdesk
- FAQ chatbot that can answer all popular questions instantly
Pricing
Kommunicate starts at $40 per month, covering core live chat and chatbot features. The Growth plan at $200 per month unlocks third-party integrations, higher conversation volume, and advanced AI features. Enterprise plans include custom branding and dedicated support. A 30-day free trial is available to get started.
5. Jitbit – Customer Support & Email Ticketing
Jitbit is an email-first help desk software solution that is ideal for small business operations. Customers can opt for either a locally-hosted licensed version of the software, or use it as a cloud-based subscription tool.
In addition to email ticketing, Jitbit also offers live chat integration, a knowledge base, customer portal, and a community forum.
Why small businesses like Jitbit
- Integration with Slack, Trello, Google Drive, and other internal collaboration systems
- Easy portability (import/export) with other helpdesk systems
- AI-powered knowledge base builder
- Native mobile app support for remote and mobile workers
- Automation triggers that can increase productivity
Pricing
Jitbit has a starting price of $29/month for businesses that need just one agent. This includes all the core features, unlimited storage, and access to mobile apps. Higher priced plans are available for more agents, as well as advanced features like downloadable backup, expedited support, and HIPAA compliance.
6. eXo Platform – Collaboration & Workspace
eXo Platform is an open source digital workplace platform that offers an efficient team communication platform ideal for small business teams.
This includes a modern intranet and collaboration platform, an internal social networking tool, a knowledge hub and a business application portal.
Why small businesses like eXo Platform
- Content organization and knowledge management
- Project and document collaboration
- Mobile-first interface
- AI augmentation throughout the platform
Pricing
The eXo Platform Professional offer is ideal for businesses with fewer than 250 employees. The digital workplace hub is priced at a monthly fee of $8 per seat. For this price, businesses get access to an unlimited number of spaces, collaboration, communication, and distribution.
Smaller plans ideal for smaller teams are in the works and are expected to launch shortly.
The Next Steps
Choosing an office communication tool setup is no longer just about the convenience or the cost. It’s a strategic decision that can shape your brand and strategy of your business.
For example, replacing a regular business landline with a tool like Unitel Voice could mean a more professional outlook for your business that shapes what your customers think of your business.
Other tools like Slack or even WhatsApp (that is not listed here) could impact how quickly and efficiently your business can make decisions – and this directly correlates with your business competitiveness.
Look at what your business needs, what you want it to be before picking the right communication tools to run your business.
