Best Team Communication Software

A lot of research has been carried out to understand group dynamics, and it is concluded that the team’s success largely depends on how well team members coordinate their actions.  It involves sharing goals, awareness of the roles and responsibilities, overall intention to execute a plan, etc. No doubt, team communication plays a pivotal role in establishing strong business relationships, formulating ideas, and helping the team surpass any challenges that obstruct business growth.

However, poor team communication can make team members disconnected with no clear instruction from management, leading to low engagement, satisfaction, and performance.  A company that fails to establish good communication among team members could eventually suffocate the organization’s growth. 

This buyer's guide for team communication software is intended to shed light on the important aspects of effective team communication and the attributes that count while onboarding team communication software.

The foundation of great businesses relies on how team members can communicate with each other. The modern-day business communication is faster, shorter, and responsive, and somewhere in their root, technology is playing a significant role. Beyond contacting and speaking in real-time, technology advancement has been allowing team members to share files, track important conversations, and create private chat rooms.

Decades ago, telephone calls, intercom systems, and memos proved to be a game-changer for business enterprises. Team members started coordinating more efficiently than formal letters and memos. It has soon become the primary mode of communication for businesses.

Today, companies are also gearing up to include webinars, instant messaging apps, and video-conferencing tools. 

It is imperative that for better team communication, technology should optimize all forms of communication and provide flexibility to use them as per the employees’ or individuals’ needs.

There are various modes of communication that are currently used by individuals or teams in any organization to convey their messages. The choice of these communications relies on the occasion or the event type.

• Verbal communication: It is the most common way of interaction that people use to address their message. Live seminars are the best example of verbal communication. Generally, verbal communication involves face-to-face interaction, but today, there are virtual communication too.
• Nonverbal communication: Nonverbal communication is anything that sends a message without speaking anything. Email is the best example of non-verbal communication. The non-verbal communication is often used in corporate environments, and it gives the flexibility to respond to the conversation at ease.
• Formal communication: Formal communication usually follows a hierarchical structure and chain of command. The communication is transmitted from top leadership down to the lower level employees.
• Informal communication: Informal communication is casual and it is not backed by any predetermined channels.The primary goal of this messaging is to establish relationships with colleagues and subordinates. 
• Interpersonal communication: Interpersonal communication is not just about conveying a message but also about how it is said, what is the facial expression and how the body language is used.
• Intrapersonal communication: Intrapersonal communication can be defined as communication with one’s self, which may include self-talk, acts of visualization and imagination, and even recall and memory. 
• Social communication: Social communication refers to the ability of an individual to interact with people in social situations. It is a combination of social interaction, social cognition, pragmatics (verbal and nonverbal), and expressive language processing. 
• Virtual communication: In this type of communication the technology is used to communicate with people who are not physically present in front of us. Instant messaging application and web conferencing is a good example of it.

Organizations are using these communication types to address their team on important projects or collect their viewpoint on it. But unfortunately, the majority of workplaces do not operate quite that smoothly. There are enough challenges to create a great team and conduct efficient team coordination.

• Inconsistency in Communication:  Usually, the communication in an organization is transmitted from top to bottom; if there is no proper channel or there is a frequent alteration in the communication mode, then it may lead to miscommunication. It is essential the communication is carried out according to the company's standard procedure.
• Lack of planning: When team members are working together towards the same goal, it is necessary that all team members to know what they need to do. Not having clarity on a project or task could lead to confusion and miscommunication. The project leaders have to ensure that proper planning is done, and team members are clear of the objectives.
• Physical barriers to non-verbal communication:  Not being able to see the non-verbal cues, gestures, body language, and general posture can make communication less effective.
• Communication overload: An overload communication or unnecessary loops of communication may confuse team members about their roles.
• Personal barriers: Personal barriers like a difference in judgment, social values, inferiority complex, cultural difference,  inability to communicate, etc. widen the psychological distance between the communicators.
• Remote working place:  Many a time the organization has to deploy their team members for remote work. In such a scenario, the team may not connect or communicate with other team members thoroughly.
• Technological barrier: Some organizations resist to implement technology in their infrastructure and stick to their old school methods. With the digital revolution, it is mandatory for organizations that they adopt advanced technology for smooth team communication. For real-time updates and smooth transition of work, the team member should be laced with the latest technology.  
• Geographic location: The geographical location of the team also has an immense effect on team conversation. If one team is operating in a different time zone, thousands of miles away from the head office, it could be difficult to collaborate with them in real-time. In such a situation, advanced asynchronous communication could be an ideal solution.

Team communication software facilitates better collaboration among the team members. It allows team members to chat, share, and learn on virtual landscapes so that the work in hand gets accomplished safely, and without any friction. 

Different employees may have different approaches for executing certain tasks. When they work in a team, it is most likely they may differ in their opinion, so all the team members must communicate to avoid conflict. Team communication software allows them to collaborate unanimously and work towards a common goal.

For flawless communication, the organization should also offer their team members a mix of private and public platforms to contact each other in preferred ways. This flexibility can be achieved through team communication software.

But mere communication is not the goal of communication software. It should also allow users to evaluate teamwork effectiveness. There are software that, along with communication, also measures their effectiveness. Evaluation of teamwork involves analyzing the team as a whole and the individual members that make up the team.

Yes, leveraging team communication can enhance business communication.

• Improved Communication: Team communication software comes with features like file sharing, instant messaging, video calls, etc. It facilitates quick communication and a higher participation rate. Besides that, users can often comment on specific tasks or files. Not just the team members but even clients can have smooth communication with the team.
• Enhances team performance: Team communication software can boost collaboration between team members and attain any issues or problems related to work. 
• More productive meetings: The team communication tools give facility to team members to convey messages in the most comprehensive way.  They support videos and files of all formats, which eventually helps them to communicate effortlessly and draw better insights from the meeting.
• Increase team’s productivity: The team communication software can accelerate the communication speed and reduce the overall time. It helps the team to save their time and invest them in other lined up work.
• Unrestricted communication: The team communication app supports mobile devices, which enables remote workers to connect with their team from anywhere and anytime
• Integration and Customization: The team communication software supports integration with other tools as well as provides customization options. It means the tool can easily migrate or install into the organization’s existing infrastructure
• Team specific communication: The team communication tool gives liberty to conduct team-specific communication.  It allows the manager or moderator to create a separate team as per the project and communicate with them separately.  
• Track past conversations: The team communication solution comes with search filters that allow users to search words inside a long file or a message buried deep in chat.
• Better Security: There are team communication apps that keep conversations confidential and highly secure. They use end-to-end encryption policies to protect organization data and files from hackers.

Yes, team communication solutions can strengthen the communication of remote team forces.

Most of the team communication tools available in the market are designed to connect remote workers.  It comes with a mobile collaboration app that allows remote workers to connect with their fellow associates in real-time.  

The team communication software allows remote teams to connect colleagues through synchronous communication like live chat or call.  Also, for remote teams, asynchronous communication is more favorable. There are team communication solutions that manage both asynchronous communication (delayed communication) as well as synchronous communication with the distributed global working team. The tool facilitates asynchronous communication by ingraining email threading models.

• Team chat and call: The team communication software allows one-to-one chats as well as team chat to communicate and collaborate effectively on the project. Some team communication software also gives the flexibility to switch between the team and a video call in a single window.
• Screen sharing: Screen sharing helps to clarify issues immediately.  It saves a lot of time, which is otherwise used in sending emails with detailed descriptions of the issue.  Not just communicating with team members, but screen sharing is also beneficial in training team members.
• To-dos: There are few team communication software that gives additional features like “To-dos” to set a task for yourself or your team members. The best thing is that some tools even allow users to view and mark tasks as done right within the chat.  Thus making it easy for team members to collaborate efficiently on the task in hand.
• Voice notes: Team communication software are designed to draw effective communication with minimum efforts. The voice notes feature saves team-members time sending personalized voice mail instead of having to text long messages. 
• Share emails: The user can move business-related mail to a specific chat room.  
• Conversation threads: Certain team communication platforms allow users to adopt a better approach to replace email conversations.  It has in-built features that create email threads just as regular email but inside the application. In fact, it is smarter than regular email, as it allows the user to tag any team member that is associated with the task. With one topic per thread, the team can easily track parallel conversations and stay up to date on what’s happening.

• Instant messaging
• Calling ( video/voice)
• Large storage 
• Data Record
• Live chat support
• Message history
• Favourite users
• Mute conversations
• Unread message filter
• Search filters (text search)
• Respond later feature
• File and screen sharing feature
• Live location tracking
• Send text message to multiple users
• Personal chat rooms
• Support audio messaging
• Customize chat background
• Easy integration with other tools
• Meeting management
• Mobile support

The team communication software has widen-up its application by including set-of-features that helps in propagating seamless communication. The price of the software varies depending on the choice of the features and number of users. However, the software price is flexible and covers all types of user-base. If you have limited use and are looking for budget-friendly software then you can choose among Jostle that starts around $3.25/month, or Hangouts Meet that falls in the price range of $1.25/month, followed by Microsoft Teams with a starting price of $5/ month. 

The users who are seeking additional features without exceeding much on a budget, then tools like Ryver with a price range $49/ month and Focos with 43/one-time would do their job while those enterprise managing larger teams can consider high-end tools like Proofhub for $89/ month or HighFive for $99/month.

There is a continuous effort made by developers to make team communication software efficient and affordable. Working towards the same goal, the free and open source team communication software offers small and large businesses an opportunity to improvise their existing communication while taking a minimum financial risk. 

GoodFirms is a trusted review and rating platform for IT solutions that help various organizations to meet their underlying goals with minimum effort. It envelops a wealth of information about software products and services. The consumer can compare the long list of communication software features against their requirements and board the best solution in their IT infrastructure to maximize the business potential. On the other end, the software vendor can study customers’ preferences and perceptions about the brand.

GoodFirms has been listing various software that are efficient in increasing the organization's productivity and reducing the operational cost. One such software is “team communication” software.

The team communication software for business helps in reducing the communication gap within the organization and sharpens the decision-making ability. It brings all the team members on the same page and ensures there is no lapse of information related to the work. If your quest for a team communication system is still unaddressed, then do not fail to check the GoodFirms list of the best team communication software.