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Almost three-quarters of freelancers report they can do their job from any part of the world. This freedom, however, comes with its downsides. Needing to be available at all times can be one of them. For that reason, you need to ensure you have the communication tools to let people talk to you no matter where you are.
This article will go over the online communication tools you might need to ensure you stay in contact with your clients. By the end, you should be able to choose which external and internal communication tools are right for you.
In the modern office, it is generally accepted that face-to-face discussion is the most effective method of communication. These are three tools to assist with that.
Skype positions itself as Microsoft's answer to business communication tools. You would not guess it, though, as it started in much more humble beginnings.
Its predecessor was a text-based communications platform called MSN Messenger. Although recently Microsoft has discontinued this app in favor of Skype's video-led offering.
Skype itself supports conference calls, video, and screen-sharing for up to fifty individuals. These days, it has around one-third of the market for making international calls, making it a market leader. It also supports end-to-end encryption, meaning it is secure for all users and very hard to intercept or affect by third parties.
Despite starting as an internal tool used by a games company, Slack has grown into a leader in organizational communication. The tool allows users to create workspaces into which they can invite participants and moderate their use of channels. Participants can join and leave these channels, giving users a large amount of control over their own communication.
Slack makes use of a free version, saving thousands of messages before purging them. This is useful for short-term communication and collaboration.
Slack also has in-built video and audio communications tools.
Zoom was a video communications company that was only starting to gain in popularity when COVID-19 hit its stride. This helped it become a household name.
Zoom's popularity came from featuring high-quality video and audio, along with powerful user-controls for the host and participants of a meeting. This caused it to become a popular choice for lectures, hosted meetings, and presentations.
Since gaining significant market traction, it has come under scrutiny due to some security and privacy issues. Zoom's company claims to have resolved these issues. As such, most problems these days seem to come from user error instead of inherent concerns.
Having the ability for many people to edit a single document is a large boon for any company. This collaboration means people do not need to send files back and forth, and also prevents losing edits due to moving forward with an old version. These applications assist with making edits like this and also organizing work moving forward.
Dropbox gives its users a folder into which they can put files that remain synchronous through any location they log in from. This allows a freelancer to work from any location they might wish to log in from, so long as they feel confident it is a secure environment.
Being able to transfer files and keep them up-to-date is a major part of intra-office communication. Knowing that you have the latest version, as Dropbox ensures, means you can stop worrying about losing track of changes.
After uploading files, you can also inform the people you are working with to ensure they are aware of these latest versions.
Like Dropbox, Google Drive allows a user to collaborate with others via files. They can either work on a single file in a shared manner or communicate about the files via a commentary system.
Using these comments as well as a detailed file versioning facility, you can allow many people in separate locations to take part in a project. You can also share these files in read-only, commentable, and editable formats with clients who can then give feedback.
Moxie is a comprehensive communication and freelance management tool. It allows you to stay on top of your work by organizing projects, time-tracking tasks, and invoices.
This cloud-based system lets you log in from anywhere, including our mobile app, giving you the freedom to work from browsers, mobile, or other portable devices.
When working with others, Moxie even allows you to put together proposals by using its WYSIWYG builder. This means you can use it as one of your tools for effective communication of pitches and offers to others you work with.
Trello is one of those team communication tools where you get out of it exactly what you put in.
To start with, it is a set of categories or columns that you can name and add tasks to. At the very least, this works well as a basic Kanban board. As you delve more into the intricacies of this online application, though, you can find it to be much deeper.
By inviting others to the board, you can use it as a communication and collaboration tool between members of a team. You can also add more detail to each task, such as deadlines, notes, or checklists. Each task ends up being one of the best communication tools in the workplace.
You now have a much more comprehensive idea of what options are out there for communication tools in the workplace. You may still be curious about what we can do, though, and we are here to help you answer that.
If you wish to see what we can provide, sign up with us today to unlock the tools to put your business tools on the next level. It's free, fast, and easy to get started, so why wait?
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