As a result of the pandemic, remote working, which has grown in popularity in recent years, has become essentially necessary. Moreover, messaging apps are thriving as well. The majority of instant messaging apps make it easier and smoother to run a distant business.
Why is a Group Messaging App Important for Business Running in 2022?
Most instant messaging apps offer basic features such as auto-reply, keyboard shortcuts, voicemail, call blacklisting while the best messaging apps should also have advanced capabilities such as file sharing, auto-reply, and group messaging. Among them, the group messaging function is very beneficial. Mass messaging is an effective and inexpensive way to market your goods and services to a larger group of customers, thus attracting more customers.
In addition to being a direct communication channel, group messaging is also very intimate. It creates a two-way communication channel between your business and your customers that is unmatched by other direct marketing channels. Businesses can leverage this intimacy to generate engagement, foster brand loyalty, and finally increase sales.
Here’s a list of the top 10 group messaging apps in 2022. You can choose one that is suitable for you to ultimately boost your business.
EasyLine
EasyLine is a phone number app designed specifically for small businesses that allow users to call with a second phone number, send text messages to clients, send group marketing messages, automatically reply to missed calls, and perform a variety of other things that allow you to communicate with customers in an easier way.
Main Features of EasyLine:
- SMS Marketing: The group messaging function is now fully upgraded. You can send updates or information about upcoming promotions to your customers via SMS.
- Auto Reply: Thinking back, have you ever missed a very important call just because you weren’t in the office or next to your phone? EasyLine’s auto-reply feature ensures that every call you’ve missed triggers a text that is sent directly to your customer. You can edit different text message templates corresponding to different customers in advance to show respect and courtesy.
- Custom Notes: EasyLine automatically records incoming calls for your business and generates useful notes. This way, whenever you receive an incoming call, you can quickly learn the background of the caller and guess the purpose of the call for optimal communication efficiency.
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Doing more work in less time is what many small businesses want their employees to do. EasyLine makes it easy for users to create their own keyboard shortcuts for information that should be delivered to clients, customers and partners in a timely manner. This feature is often used to answer common questions and resolve customer issues promptly.
- Custom Voicemail: The old-fashioned voicemail greeting is outdated. EasyLine allows you to customize various private voicemail for different customers. They will thus feel welcome and may express their appreciation for your business.
- Call Blacklisting: Think back to all those annoying incoming calls and text messages that waste your time and spoil your mood. With EasyLine’s call blacklisting feature, you can block all those unwanted calls and texts, ensuring that your team can focus on interacting with important customers.
Dingtone
Among all the free number apps, Dingtone is the best which has already gained over 30 million users’ praises. With Dingtone, you can get a real phone number for unlimited calls and texts.
Main Features of Dingtone:
- Walkie Talkie: Dingtone turns your phone into a real walkie-talkie – you just press a button and talk. It works just like a two-way radio! You can live stream your voice for free via WiFi or data connection. Up to 100 users can be added to an intercom conversation. And, even if your Dingtone is offline, you can still receive notifications from the intercom.
- Live Video: You can share every meaningful moment with your family and friends through free video calls; chat with your loved ones as if you were meeting face-to-face.
- International SMS: If you are a heavy SMS sender, you must know the stress of breaking the SMS limit and paying huge fees for international SMS. With Dingtone International SMS service, you can forget about monthly plans and enjoy free text messages worldwide.
- Conference Call: Dingtone offers a free conference call service that allows you to easily communicate with employees in different time zones. Each conference call can have up to 1,000 participants. The call host is the only person who needs to have Dingtone software installed.
- Call Record: It enables you to record important calls, for example, reviewing tasks given by your boss, double-checking the core of a conference call, etc.
- Group messaging: Dingtone provides flexible ways to send messages. Group texting and broadcast messages. You can send SMS messages to many recipients at the same time but receive their individual replies. This greatly increases the efficiency of work communication.
Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, more organized, and more secure than email. It offers file sharing, cloud storage, one-on-one chat, and group chat. You can use tags to clearly group multiple organizations and projects for more effective group messaging.
Main Features of Slack:
- Channels: Slack stays organized and focused by providing a central space for conversations, documents, tools, and people.
- Messaging: You can easily edit and (promptly or regularly) send SMS messages. Also, Slack offers a one-click mass messaging feature.
- Video and Voice Call: Slack enables you to work remotely, whether you’re at home or on the go. You can share your screen in a video conference call to clearly communicate complex ideas. The built-in voice and video calls are great, but Slack can also be used with other tools. By connecting to the video conferencing service of your choice, you can start a meeting or join a call immediately without leaving your Slack conversation.
- Apps and Integrations: Slack helps you automate away everyday tasks inside and outside, with no coding required. Workflows in Slack can handle routine and repetitive tasks, so you can get answers, approvals, collect requests, send shout-outs or crowdsource new ideas with less effort.
- Workflow builder: The old-fashioned voicemail greeting is outdated. EasyLine allows you to customize various private voicemail for different customers. They will thus feel welcome and may express their appreciation for your business.
- File-Sharing: In Slack, files and conversations flow in an organized, searchable space called a channel. Channels make it easier to share files and their surroundings with the right people and to find them later.
- Enterprise Key Management: You can set your own encryption key and have complete control over your data access in Slack. With Slack EKM, you can use your own keys – stored in Amazon’s Key Management Service (AWS KMS) – to encrypt messages and files.
OpenPhone
Work phone numbers are added to your existing devices with OpenPhone. No new hardware is required; all you need is an app.
Main Features of OpenPhone:
- Local and toll-free: You can get a US, Canadian, or toll-free number instantly.
- Multiple numbers: You can get unlimited numbers for people, teams, or locations.
- Texting: You can send texts, photos, videos, and files from any device.
- Call transfer: You can push a live call to another team member.
- Call and text globally: You can call and message anyone, anywhere in the world.
- Group messaging: You can communicate with multiple people at the same time.
- Call recording: You can click to record any call or enable auto-recording.
- Business hours: You can mute calls when you’re off the clock.
ProofHub
ProofHub allows companies to have ultimate control over all their teams and projects. It is essentially a team communication software that puts all project communication in one place. You can create topics, brainstorm, collaborate, and get work done faster. All communication is done internally and is also recorded. ProofHub is a very reliable option, especially when it comes to chatting.
Main Features of ProofHub:
- Discussions: You can create discussion threads that bring all your team and customer discussions together in one place, eliminating lengthy email threads. Mention people, grab their attention, and keep them engaged in the discussion.
- Table View: You can plan and present project-related data in a well-organized way, and then clearly understand what needs to be done and which tasks are a priority. Powerful sorting and grouping features give you the flexibility to organize your work the way you like.
- Gantt Charts: You can plan and visualize how the various parts of your project fit together in a timeline view. Prioritize key tasks and use the task dependencies in the Gantt chart to more intelligently and flexibly adjust your plan as work changes and deadlines shift.
- Calendar: You can stay on top of your calendar with recurring tasks, automatic reminders, and multiple calendar views. Merge your ProofHub calendar with the one you normally use to avoid referring to multiple ProofHub calendars.
- Files and Documents: You can keep your files and documents in one central location, keeping them organized and finding them quickly when you need them. Save multiple versions of the same file and use any one of them when you need it.
- Custom Roles: You can customize roles and ultimately control everyone’s access based on your organization’s workflow.
- Chat: Send messages directly and get quick replies. One-to-one or group messaging to make conversations between teams and with customers more efficient.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Team has been hefty. It offers a plethora of features that can help businesses set up, maintain and communicate with remote employees. Even if you don’t run your business entirely through Microsoft, this platform is a great messaging application option.
Main Features of Microsoft Teams:
- Instant messaging: You can send one-to-one or group instant messages. Customize your messages with rich text editing.
- File-Sharing: You can work together on the same file in real-time and avoid the confusion of multiple versions with instant, automatic synchronization and version history tracking.
- Collaboration: Share files, co-author and edit content simultaneously, automatically save everyone’s changes, communicate in real-time, ideate in the Whiteboard app, work together in channels, and more.
Chanty
Chanty is a specialized application for team messaging that combines chat, audio, video, and screen sharing all together to enable remote teams to communicate and collaborate more effectively.
Main Features of Chanty:
- Communicate: You can reach your team and stay synced with text, voice, or video. Both one-to-one and group messaging features are included.
- Collaborate: You can share screens, files, links, or set tasks to bring more context to your discussions.
- Connect: You can bring all the apps you use during the day to a single place.
- Organize: You can search, browse and filter your team activity organized in the Team book.
- Focus: You can take control over the information you get with smart notifications.
- Relax: Chanty enables you to feel safe with invite-only team access, data encryption & data export.
Zoho Cliq
Zoho Cliq offers high-quality, cloud-based software that won’t cost you a fortune in terms of pricing. While the platform doesn’t have all the features of Slack or Microsoft Team, it offers users more than enough features to present a solid communications platform that can be integrated with other low-cost Zoho applications.
Main Features of Zoho Cliq:
- Group Collaboration: You can work with your team to bring ideas to life quickly. Both one-to-one and group sending functions can be implemented smoothly here.
- Your team is on tap away: No matter where you’re working from or what device you’re working on, you can jump onto a voice or video call and stay connected.
- Calendar: Your daily tasks and calendar schedule are available right where you work together. You’ll never forget your tasks or meetings.
- Data Security: A first-class security system, including data encryption and secret chat, ensures that your organization’s data is always secure.
Twilio
In essence, Twilio is a blank canvas. The platform allows companies to build their own systems for things like SMS and phone number redirection. uber, Airbnb, and Netflix are notable examples of their users. It can be used for almost anything, including individual or group business messaging.
Main Products of Twilio:
- Channels: Messaging; Programmable Voice; Video; Twilio Live; Email.
- Applications: Twilio Flex; Marketing Campaigns; Twilio Frontline; Account Security; Twilio Segment.
- Connectivity: Internet of Things; Elastic SIP Trunking; Phone Numbers; Short Codes.
Twist
Twist is perfect for teams that are spread across multiple locations. It’s visually like email, but conversations are categorized. If you’re looking for something slower-paced to replace email to keep your team communicating, it would be a good choice.
Main Features of Twist:
- Message: You can share video chat links with teammates for meetings or use group messaging to send an idea to the entire team.
- Formatting: You can use Twist’s composer to create compelling, well-thought-out, easy-to-understand posts and messages! For example, add a link, emoticon, motion picture, comment, etc.
- Notifications: Notifications are gentle reminders about conversations or events in Twist, like when you’re added to a new team. There are many types of notifications in Twist and you can choose which notifications you want to receive for each team.
After looking at so many excellent information platforms, you should already know the characteristics of each of them. Download them, test them out and see which software is best for you.