Top 5 Benefits of Instant Messaging for Enterprises

Here’s how enterprise messaging apps help your organization work smarter, from streamlining data flow between teams to creating a single source of truth and easily accessible digital record.

With the pandemic dramatically changing the way that we work, the meaning of “facetime” with colleagues transformed from water cooler chats to video calls. Getting permission from superiors or asking for advice was no longer as simple as walking across the office, and businesses scrambled to find ways to facilitate communication for employees who weren’t present in the same physical space.

Apps like Zoom initially did a great job of filling the gaps, but there’s still a need for platforms that provide easy, quick communication between employees that isn’t addressed through video calls. This is especially true considering that working from home has gone from a temporary arrangement to standard procedure in huge numbers of workplaces. A full return to the office, with employees present each day, seems unlikely.

Add to the mix that many employees are using non-compliant methods to keep up with their jobs, including personal messaging apps like Whatsapp. This opens up businesses a plethora of risks, ranging from the most recent JP Morgan fine lawsuits and fines to damage to brand reputation that could cost billions. Industries ranging from finance to healthcare and more are subject to legal requirements about discussing sensitive information. It’s up to organizations to protect themselves by ensuring that they’re in compliance with regulations around data protection and communication.

Teams gain a valuable tool which enables them to quickly exchange information and reach their colleagues whether they’re working from the office, coffee shop, or home. It also creates a compliant, documented record of conversations and discussions that can be accessed later. Read on to learn more about the benefits of using an enterprise communication app in your organization.

Top 5 benefits of using an enterprise communication app

1. Keep everyone in the loop

Today, as 63% of high-growth businesses embrace a hybrid model, in which employees work part-time from the office and other days from home, it’s all too common for important messages to slip through the cracks. Instant messaging applications can be downloaded to an employee’s mobile phone, so that even if they’re not physically present in the workplace, their clients and colleagues can still easily reach them if need be. 

Rather than back-and-forth email chains, where one slip of the finger could mean a critical stakeholder ends up not being copied onto a new message, enterprise text messaging brings all relevant parties together in one place. People can get the answers they need to take real-time action when it matters most, rather than being stuck sifting through various email threads and awaiting responses that might take hours to arrive. 

Another factor to bear in mind is the risk of non compliance with the SEC and other governing bodies with legal requirements for your industry. If you’re not able to document all client communication in one place, you’re setting your organization up for a chaotic scramble to gather critical conversations down the road in the event of a dispute or audit. And if you’re not able to find all that scattered data in the future when you need it, you may be subject to devastating legal consequences 

2. Easing customer – client conversations

Communication platforms for business are a convenient way for clients to reach out to businesses. Whether they’re reaching out to get a status update about their account or to make a query about a new product feature, doing so over a messaging app takes away the formality of a phone call or email. When clients feel comfortable reaching out to businesses, loyalty and satisfaction are found to increase.

But casual communication between customers and businesses also comes with a downside. Regulations often mandate that discussions about sensitive data or business be recorded in a specific way. Bankers and traders have been terminated – and their employers fined – because they sent clients messages about their accounts which they deleted later on, in violation of such record-keeping requirements.

For new employees who may not be familiar with best practices for compliance in internal and external conversations, using an enterprise communication app can ensure that they’re covered, and protects your organization from potential liability issues. Rather than forcing them to log a text message in a separate platform, communication within a secure app that automatically creates a record helps take the burden off both junior and veteran employees when it comes to respecting recording requirements. 

3. Cut through the noise

With so many different mediums at play in today’s work world, conversations are often held across a dizzying array of platforms. In a single day, colleagues might discuss the same matter via phone calls, video conferences, text messages, and email. This means that critical information can end up being siloed and separated across platforms. And that can lead to non-compliance around your business’ data, which in turn can trigger disastrous consequences like lawsuits, heavy financial penalties, and even bankruptcy.

Research has found that employees spend up to 85% of their work days contending with various collaborative work platforms, from email to video conferencing. By consolidating important information into one place, organizations can streamline their client conversations so that employees can focus on their work, rather than endlessly navigating across apps or searching multiple platforms for information.

By mandating that discussions around business take place in one instant messaging platform, there’s a single source of truth that everyone can access. Not only does that make your business’ day-to-day operations easier, it serves as a crucial safety net in the case of a future dispute or governmental audit.

4. Easy, enthusiastic adoption

Employee resistance to new technology is an expensive problem that many organizations are struggling to manage. When it feels like there’s a new program being rolled out each month, fatigued teams are less eager to learn the ropes of yet another solution that could potentially take them out of their work flow. But instant messaging solutions for businesses fall squarely outside of that category, thanks to its intuitive UX and the clear benefits they provide.

Advanced technologies may contain futuristic features that impress CTOs, but ease-of-use is extremely important if you actually want your employees to adopt a new solution. With messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Signal widely used by millions of customers, the chances are high that your employees are already familiar with instant messaging platforms. Choosing an enterprise communication platform that’s a natural fit for your teams greatly increases the likelihood that they will actively use it.

5. Greater transparency and compliance

Depending on your industry, there may be strict requirements around conversations between employees and clients, or even between different teams within the organization. If instant messaging is designated as the official platform where business-related conversations take place, your company can protect itself with a comprehensive digital record. This record helps your organization remain in compliance with regulations about business-related communications.

The risks of looking the other way while your employees use WhatsApp (or other personal non-authorized apps) to relay sensitive information are serious. Secure enterprise text messaging can help your organization avoid costly fines and irreparable damage to your brand’s reputation that could be caused by employees not adhering to data privacy rules.

If your teams are already using multiple platforms to communicate with each other and clients, there’s a way to ensure that your business is staying in compliance with your industry’s regulations. LeapXpert provides a federated messaging orchestration solution that keeps track of business conversations across multiple communication apps in one unified place.

The solution maintains a complete record of all messaging conversations between your employees and your clients, no matter the platform, giving you unprecedented insights into user behavior and customer communication preferences, as well as ownership of critical data. 

If you’d like to learn more about how to best manage enterprise messaging within your organization, get in touch with us! We’d love to advise you on the best ways to facilitate easy business communication, while staying in compliance and protecting your business.