A few months after the world went into lockdown mode, we released a blog highlighting the ten things to consider while looking for a team collaboration app for your business.

The pandemic has changed the way the world works. From work from home to a remote-first hybrid work model, we've all adapted to constantly evolving work environments. Likewise, it's also critical to check if the internal communication and collaboration tool you're using is staying on par with the changing trends. The workplace has evolved in the last two years, and we are back with four must-have factors to ensure your team collaboration app is suited to the evolving, hyper-connected work environment.

1. A unified platform for the remote-first hybrid workplace  

Context switching creates a negative impact on productivity. Context switching is when you leave a task incomplete and move to another due to an interruption. There are many reasons for such disruptions, many of them inevitable when working from different locations.

For instance, say you're focusing on a critical task that has a strict deadline, and you're interrupted with an ad-hoc meeting scheduled by one of your teammates. You'll probably end up attending the meeting, leaving the task incomplete.

Or, if you're drafting a project report and need to switch to another tab to find necessary data for it, you may lose focus while switching tabs and start doing other work without completing the report.

You can avoid these types of interruptions when you have the right team collaboration tool in place.

You can set your status as Engaged at work when you work on any critical task to inform your teammates that you will not be available for collaboration. This way, remote work statuses in Cliq help you focus on work without interruptions and also take disturbance-free breaks.

And because all the data you need for work is available right within Cliq, there is no switching between tabs for information. With ample native and third-party integrations for Cliq, you can engage and access information from all the apps that you use in one place: the Cliq window. So when you want to grab some info from Zoho Projects (Zoho's marquee project management tool), you can access that data from Cliq through its tight integrations.

Key Takeaway: The team collaboration tool you use for your organization should come with remote work features that help you work without disturbances as well as being closely integrated with the other apps or tools you use. This helps you avoid contextual switching at work and speed up productivity.

2. AI-powered tool to work smarter with automated workflows  

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will hold a key place in the future workspace. According to  Gartner, despite the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic, 30% of organizations have planned to increase AI investments.

Imagine two scenarios; one in which you handle all your routine tasks manually and one where you automate your everyday tasks with the help of bots. The latter sounds better as it reduces your workload and helps improve productivity by focussing on meaningful work instead of manual data entry tasks on a loop. Workflow automation not only reduces human error in the workflow but also saves a considerable amount of time.

In fact,  one study revealed that 85% of business leaders believe that automating some of the workload gives them and their employees more time to focus on the goals that truly matter to the company.

Say one of your everyday tasks is to engage with customers and quickly address their ideas and queries. It's critical to address customer grievances swiftly, as happy customers are the foundation of any business. Ideally, you use a customer service tool to address the issues and then an internal communication tool to discuss work items with your fellow customer success executives.

But with Zoho Cliq, you need not navigate between the customer community tab and the Cliq window to stay updated on all the new customer posts. Instead, you can have a Community Bot that instantly notifies you with new queries and complaints within Cliq.

Likewise, you can build a few other bots like the My To-do Bot, Campaigns Bot, Stats Bot etc., and also subscribe to some existing bots. Building a bot in Cliq isn't as tough as it sounds because the Zoho Cliq Platform makes it basic without involving lines and lines of code.

Cliq also comes with its natively made bot, Taz, which will keep you on top of all your task updates, upcoming meetings, pending work items, and much more.

These are some examples of how intelligent assistants can help you be productive by automating routine tasks.

Key Takeaway: Adopt a team collaboration tool with a dynamic AI-powered platform; it helps you work smarter and get things done faster. Also, the tool you use must constantly be growing and adapting to Artificial intelligence.

3. Robust admin controls to manage your organization efficiently  

It's getting harder for the leaders of organizations to manage their employees and organizations in a hyper-connected work environment. This makes it all the more important to have robust admin capabilities in your tools.

When you use a team collaboration tool for your business, you must be able to control the way your employees use the tool. This is where fine-grained admin features can help ensure compliance with the organization's policies.

Key Takeaway: The tool you choose and implement must empower you with features that allow you to manage users and ensure compliance, as well as offer all the admin capabilities necessary to run a sound organization.

4. Multi-device support to easily work from anywhere   

Work is no longer confined to an office space or a desk at home. Most of us now travel and work on the go simultaneously.

• When you're away from your laptop, you can manage your work from Cliq mobile.

• Traffic jams don't have to hamper your work when you're driving, as Cliq supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. You can send messages, listen to incoming messages, attend meetings and do much more, even when you're behind the wheel.

• You can also carry the Cliq on your wrist! Zoho Cliq is compatible with Apple Watches and Google Gears.

Key Takeaway: The team collaboration tool you use must come with multi-device compatibility to allow you to work from anywhere.

To Summarize   

The team collaboration tool you use (or are looking to adopt) should grow to keep pace with the constantly evolving work environment and technological advancements.

Choosing and employing the best available team collaboration tool or software for your business is one significant contribution you're making to the successful functioning of your organization.

With that, see you all in 2023 with a set of new trends and niche features.