Solving the Communication Chaos: Simplifying Your Workflow with One Tool

From emails and phone calls to instant messaging and video conferences, work in the digital era requires us to juggle more communication channels than we know what to do with. While all this choice is great when it comes to finding the right tool for the job, it can be a hindrance to actually getting your work done. Always having to switch between comms channels can distract you from your tasks and eat up valuable time as you re-focus on your work.

What’s more, having conversations with colleagues, clients, and customers across multiple channels increases the chances of things falling through the cracks; you have a video call, but now the files can’t be found; you send a message, but you don’t remember who was on the last call. Having multiple communication tools means having to keep track of them all, which leaves less time to actually be productive.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can simplify your workflow by consolidating your communications channels into a unified package. Keeping all your comms tools within one platform stops you from wasting time and energy hopping from one app to another. Moreover, with everything in a single place, you can follow conversations with colleagues, clients, and customers across multiple channels without losing track of documents, people, or tasks.

Solving communication chaos doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler, the better, so let’s look at how you can achieve this in just a few easy steps.

Multiple Communication Tools: Understanding the Communication Chaos

The first stage to simplifying your communication chaos is understanding the individual channels aren’t the problem; it’s how they are used. Every tool has its benefits and drawbacks, and a collaborative business communications considers them all. To better understand, let’s review some of the most important communication tools you should have in any workflow.

Email is still the backbone of most business communication. It’s ideal for conveying medium-length, one-way information when two people are not synchronized with their work – i.e., not working at the same time. It is also cross-platform, meaning it’s great for client outreach since not everyone has to be using the same software. However, many email clients are still clunky and old-fashioned, which can result in messages becoming garbled with headers and signatures as well as attachments being lost in the fray.

Instant messaging is almost the antithesis of email; it’s short, quick, and requires both people to be engaged to work well. While IM business chat can often be used to send files, they can get lost in long conversations. Unlike email, instant messaging is often based on the person rather than the topic, which makes it great for talking in a team.

Video meetings have been around for a while but really shot to prominence during the pandemic. They require complete synchronicity between participants to work, but with that comes the benefits of being able to bounce ideas back and forth and deep dive into topics.

Voice calls are another important channel for communication – whether a “normal” phone line or a VOIP service. They offer similar benefits and drawbacks to video calls but can be a less video call fatigue.

Interactive whiteboards are a digital collaboration space most frequently used for internal communication within a team. They allow employees to work together despite not being in the same location or time zone. With file storage and chat often bundled in, they can be a valuable way to keep track of work and collaborate remotely.

Voice messages have become a popular part of the world’s most used messaging apps, and it’s no different for businesses. They are a great way to quickly share information with colleagues without being synchronized as you would with video or voice calls.

If the individual communication channels in the workplace aren’t the problem, what is? Simply put, managing them. Having multiple communication tools across different platforms can cause confusion if they don’t match your team’s needs or there isn’t clarity about when to use them. The dreaded “this could have been an email” meetings start taking over your week, and valuable work grinds to a halt.

What’s more, if you have a different platform for each channel – an email client, a video meeting provider, a business chat app, etc. – then information, files, and people can get lost when switching between them. Positive leads can falter and fail because calls aren’t followed up on, or messages are missed.

Simply put, your workflow weakens, and the productivity of your entire team takes a hit.

The Advantages of Simplifying Your Workflow Away From Multiple Communication Tools

On the other hand, bringing all your communication channels into a single unified platform can help focus your workflow, increase productivity, and boost efficiency. You won’t break your flow with context switching or lose important info between channels. While it can take time to go from meeting to message when using different apps, keeping multiple communication tools in a single hub makes transitions smooth and straightforward.

Additionally, offering multiple team communication tools on a single platform can boost collaboration. First, there are practical considerations – having design collaboration tools like interactive whiteboards allows teams to work together. Additionally, combining multiple communication tools means each team member can choose and use the tools that suit them.

Finally, when communication is simple, teams are more likely to talk. When chatting with colleagues or clients stops being such a chore, everyone on the team is more likely to jump in with both feet. This can immediately boost the quantity and quality of communication at your enterprise. What’s more, advanced communication apps that combine channels help keep things organized, which frees you up to focus on more important tasks.

Spike’s Solution to the Communication Chaos

Spike is that unified solution, offering an easy-to-use, modern, and effective platform with multiple communication tools. No matter the size of your team, Spike helps you connect and communicate – turning chaos into collaboration.

At the heart of Spike is a team collaboration platform that brings this business staple into the age of modern digital work. Spike is the world’s first Conversational Email, which delivers all the positives of traditional email with the benefits of instant messaging. This is combined with the Priority Inbox, which selects your most important mail and sends everything else to “Other.” A clean inbox and simple messages cut through the clutter, freeing you up to focus on more important work.

In addition to emails, Spike has Video Meetings, audio calls, and Voice Messages built right in. Whether you’re chatting with colleagues or reaching out to clients, you can choose the channel that suits your needs and collaborate seamlessly with people around the world. If you need to be on the same page, literally, Spike’s Online Notes acts as your interactive whiteboard – words, images, code, videos, and more across personal and collaborative boards.

What’s more, Spike is a single platform across any device, with native mobile applications for iOS and Android as well as Windows, Mac, and web applications. And it’s not just for your team; Spike’s collaborative features are accessed via a regular email address, allowing you to loop in external clients or contacts.

Spike combines the multiple communication tools you need into a single simple package, creating easier workflows and a more productive workplace. With everything you need to collaborate in a single app, you don’t ever have to worry about missing a thing. But don’t take it from us, there are businesses around the world that rely on Spike to manage their communication.

Case Study: Success Stories from Our Users

Yan Sim manages supply chain operations for Warby Parker, which involves balancing multiple stakeholders and teams to complete projects. For him to do his job, communication needs to be simple and easy. “[Spike’s] layout is clean, so you can see the whole flow of the conversation,” Sim explains.  “Other email apps repeat content in reply threads, making the thread long and unwieldy. But in Spike’s format, I see just what I need to see.” And that’s something that users across the world have found, with reviews throughout last year reporting that Spike’s “UX feels great! It delivers on the promise of simplifying email to make it more like chat” as well as being “visually the best out there.”

But really it’s Spike’s “super fast features” that allow you to clean up your communication chaos, as Darren Olstad, the founder of Crowne Law, puts it. Spike offers the “functionality of the modern-day chats, like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, on top of email,” says Olstadm. Additionally, “voice memos are just WAY easier to get to and generate than phone calls. I can communicate the whole picture, and it’s faster than playing phone tag.”

Keeping multiple communication tools in a single place using Spike allows Yan Sim, Darren Olstad, and all these Spike users to be more productive and efficient in their work.

It’s Time to Turn Chaos into Collaboration

Simplifying your workflow by consolidating multiple communication tools into one platform cuts the clutter and confusion so you can focus on what’s important. It helps avoid the pitfalls of using the wrong channels to communicate, stops you from having to jump from app to app, and centralizes your information and conversations, so you’re never out of the loop.

Collaboration is a breeze and communication simple when you’ve got the right tools to hand, and Spike combines all the channels you need in a single, easy-to-use package. Users worldwide have already simplified their communication chaos with Spike, and you can try it yourself today absolutely free.