The development of professional live chats

Live chats in companies are completely modifying our working habits. As they are currently in full development, we are witnessing their development and the changes they impose on human relationships, especially at work. These conversation tools are designed to make employees’ lives easier, and in the future, they could even reply for them. We will try to tell you more about this simple concept which is completely impacting work and how it is supposed to ease work, making it more instant and digital. We will also analyse how Whatsapp and Slack, a more professional instant chat, are more and more used in companies and in professional relationships.

The boom of collaborative applications

For some years now, instant messaging has become something very common for all consumers. Having all types of applications to instantly chat with someone has become a standard. And as the boundary between professional and private life seems to be disappearing more than ever, it was obvious that instant messaging was going to be used in companies. And all free simple applications like Whatsapp allow employees and companies to discuss with people from all around the world, as these application are common to many people. However, some of them were not considered as “professional enough” and that’s why some Silicon Valley engineers decided to develop other applications with many features, to adapt to the companies’ needs.

The example of Slack, a collaborative platform

Very popular in the Silicon Valley, Slack is a service of instant chat functioning in cloud allowing, first of all, employees of a same company to chat. Slack is an acronym which means “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge“. There are some subjects of conversation in which you can participate, and there is always a trace of what you said or shared in the group conversation. There are of course other features than the communications’ ones. To impose itself in the workplace, Slack offers the possibility to connect other applications to the platform. Indeed, as you can share files, you can connect a Dropbox or a Google Drive account for example. You can even connect services like Uber, or more specific ones like CRM software (for example Salesforce), or HR softwares.

It has the advantage to be available either online, on computers as well as on mobile devices, so this is pretty modern and adapted to the world we live in, that is to say a digital and mobile one. It can even help your employees to save time because there is even a system of chatbot, which allows the application to reply for you. These type of platform can be considered as expensive but it was proven that it improves productivity and responds to the challenge of immediacy required by this world. It is good for your company but also for your clients. You can be connected to them easier than ever. Slack is functioning so well that Facebook and Microsoft tried to compete with them by launching last year their beta version of a workplace information system.