Emails used to be the primary mode of communication in modern offices – and they continue to be a common staple in the average office worker’s life. However, times have certainly changed; with digital tools and instant messaging apps quickly developing to suit our busy lifestyles, there are now a whole host of communication tools available to make our working lives easier and let us do things faster.
Below, we take a look at some of the best alternatives to email and why it’s something you should consider if you’re looking to improve the speed and efficiency of your business communications.
What are the Alternatives to Email?
One of the best alternatives to email is instant messaging software. Tools like Slack have grown in popularity within the business world in recent years; this is thanks to their efficiency in allowing us to quickly communicate, without the need for laborious email threads. Instant messaging apps help us to cut communication time down significantly and ultimately get to the heart of the discussion quicker.
In today’s modern world, people are busy; being able to communicate quickly has meant that instant messaging apps have become a key catalyst for communication – and is starting to push email behind.
While there are countless business instant messenger apps to choose from, the best ones allow you to create specific group chats for your team, share files and documents with ease, and keep your information secure – so you don’t have to worry about the safety of your files or any other content you communicate to each other via this channel.
Why should I use Instant Messaging Software instead of Email?
Many office workers know this situation; you sit down at the start of your working day to sort through and reply to your emails before you tackle anything else. However, when emails are your primary tool for communication, it can take upwards of an hour sometimes to simply sift through the threads of conversations and organize your priorities.
Fortunately, having an alternative to email will help you to sort your communications across different tools. For example, you could use instant messaging software internally for your team to chat, share files and keep each other updated, and reserve your emails purely for external communications.
If you’re looking for a tool that helps you keep your tasks and communications closely synced, Ayoa provides all-in-one instant messaging software that allows you to chat directly alongside its task boards (what are used to manage various tasks and dedicated projects). This will allow you to keep your conversations focused at all times.
Let’s look at this in context. Say you’re starting work on a new marketing campaign and you’re managing all your communication for this project via email. With the amount of information you’ll be sharing across colleagues and departments, it can be very easy for important information to become lost in countless email threads. Rather than conducting the usual long back and forth of deciding responsibilities and what needs to be done, you can create a task board for your project in Ayoa and add your teammates directly to this. You can then create a group chat instantly with everyone that has been added to that task board.
With the click of a button, you can start communicating with the relevant people to that project, without having to make sure everyone is copied into every email chain.
With Ayoa’s instant messaging, you can also see exactly what tasks have been assigned to you, or that you have delegated to others within the chat panel – meaning your conversations are always focused, saving your time and unnecessary distractions that can come from managing your email communications. In fact, finding alternatives to email will help you to cut down the time you spend sifting through your inbox and will make your communication processes easier and more time-efficient.
Why should you consider Email Alternatives?
While it’s likely that there will always be a place for email communications, the rapid growth of technology means that there could be better solutions out there for you that could make all the difference to the efficiency of your business communications. Perhaps you’re looking to cut down the time your team spends checking their email inbox every morning? Or maybe you want to make sure your team is always kept in the loop? It can be all too easy for someone to not be copied into emails, or simply have important information get lost in the depths of your inbox.
Email used to be the primary mode of communication among office workers – and that included communication between internal colleagues as well as any external clients and stakeholders. Considering the alternatives to email will allow you to see which tools work best for you – and whether email still holds a valuable place in your communications.
Instant messaging apps are particularly useful for internal teams looking to keep in touch. They allow team members to quickly and easily update each other on projects, share files or simply ask quick questions – without needing to fill up each other’s email inboxes. They also save you time. With many more office workers now working remotely, teams are having to keep in touch more regularly with updates and questions. This can lead to your email inbox becoming overloaded very quickly, meaning you spend more time sorting out your inbox rather than focusing on the work that matters.
So, is there a future for email in today’s working world? While emails still serve a valuable purpose in keeping us connected, there’s no doubt that alternative solutions, such as business instant messenger tools, are beginning to overtake email communications in their efficiency to keep us more productive and save us time.
