What Tools Improve Remote Team Productivity?

Not so long ago, remote working was regarded as a service position at below minimum wage. Nevertheless, over the last few years, remote work has grown into a practical and popular way of doing business. According to a remote work statistic, the number of people working from home has skyrocketed by 173% and these numbers are still growing. Everyone can always use more help,. So, What Tools Improve Remote Team Productivity?

Tools to Improve Remote Team Productivity

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more businesses are implementing remote working policies. For many, this has been a difficult transition. Still, there are some significant benefits both employees and employers have started to see, as remote work is becoming the new normal. 

According to studies, remote workers are showing more productivity and are overall more satisfied with their job. Also, companies can save on overhead costs for office supplies, space,  computers, etc. Because of these benefits, companies have realized that with remote working, productivity will remain high, and they can even prosper, following this new trend.

So, is remote working bridging the end to the office? Well, not quite. Remote working is just the evolution of it. Employees still need an office, but not the ones equipped with copy machines and paper clips. In remote work, employees work in virtual offices, which are composed of software and processes that grease the wheels of the company’s productivity. 

Still, some difficulties and challenges are emerging with long-term remote work. Companies need to oversee work, manage the company’s relationships and interactions with customers, brainstorm together, manage projects, etc. 

To improve your teams’ productivity, and get the most of remote work, here are five tools that can help your business prosper. 

1. Slack
2. Really Simple Systems CRM
3. Zoom
4. Hubstaff
5. Blink

Slack

Remote working can make collaboration and communication a little bit more difficult. As there are no more meetings and quick conversations during breaks, less information is being shared between employees. That’s why establishing different communication channels is crucial for stimulating more collaboration and helps run a successful business remotely.

Slack is a quick and simple communication tool, most remote workers love to use. It provides an always-on communal space for your team to chat, exchange ideas, and share comments. Your team can also easily share images, files, and you can even create reminders for them.

Another aspect of the tool is that keeps all conversations centralized. You can create different channels for different employees, and keep all the conversations cataloged and easy to find.

Apart from employee communication and collaboration, with Slack, you can also communicate with people outside your company. This includes clients, customers, vendors, and even other companies using shared channels and guest accounts.

Slack is available on desktop, Android, and IOS supporting devices, and so it can be adapted to fit the exact needs of your team.

Really Simple Systems

Customers are important for every business, and in fact, they are the single most valuable asset of any company. Apart from the revenue they bring in, customers provide valuable feedback and can serve as a jumping-off point for new ideas and concepts. 

Understanding your customers is more important than just appreciating them, and so collecting and organizing customer data is an unavoidable full-time job that must be done close to perfection. That’s why investing in a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) system is crucial tool for every business that wants to take customer satisfaction to the next level and boost office productivity.

Really Simple Systems offers a small yet powerful business CRM system, designed for growing small and medium-sized teams working B2B. 

This CRM system enables users to manage their clients, leads, opportunities, and campaigns from a single merged platform. The software is called “ really simple” for a good reason, as the design and dashboard are undemanding and easy to understand. This way, users with no previous experience in CRM software, won’t have a hard time figuring out how to use the software.

RSS provides you with a substantial set of CRM features that can help you excel in your customer relationship.

One of the features the software offers is its sales pipeline management. The feature allows you to manage and track your sales, and therefore effectively prioritize your sales efforts. This gives you a clear picture of your sales team’s pipelines through the sales process.

Another great feature is the contact management tool. It enables you to manage your contacts and share information with your team. Not only that but you can have a 360-degree view of all your interactions. Through this feature, you can enhance your customer experience and engagement for existing customer relationships. The system records all interactions, emails, notes, calls, and documents, and arranges them in a summary timeline. 

Zoom

By now, you may have heard of Zoom video conferencing software. Remote working requires meetings and regular communication now and then, and so video conferencing software is a must for every business.

Zoom is one of the most trusted and reliable tools for screen sharing and video calls. It combines online meetings, group messaging, and video conferencing into a user-friendly platform. It provides users to create virtual meetings, host seminars, video demonstrations, and video training. The platform supports up to 1000 interactive video participants and can serve up to 10.000 view-only partakers.

The interface is lightweight, clean, and easy to navigate. The platform offers you four buttons: “New meeting”, “Join”, “Schedule”, “Screen Share”, and also a calendar for upcoming meetings.

One thing that makes Zoom stand out is its exceptionally good HD video and audio performance. Zoom’s audio and video quality work very well even in inconvenient situations such as low-bandwidth, and it doesn’t show any signs of latency or echo inside the portals.

Zoom is available on various platforms such as Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, and room systems like H.323/SIP.  

Hubstaff

With remote working, managers can lose track of how much time employees are spending on different projects. Hubstaff is a time-tracking software tool that allows managers to monitor employee activity during work hours. 

The app monitors which websites and applications your team is viewing, their activity, and how much they spend time on their desktop. This data is then gathered, and individual reports are created for every employee.  

The app monitors employee activity, based on keystrokes and mouse movements. In a period of ten minutes, Hubstaff calculates how many seconds the user was inactive. This calculation is compared to how many seconds the user was using the mouse and keyboard, and this comparison determines the employee’s activity level. 

Hubstaff automatically creates an invoice using this data, and this allows you to bill your clients based on the time spent on a project. 

Blink

Blink is an all-inclusive app that enables communication and increases productivity for remote teams. The app was designed to go beyond the basic features of a conventional intranet, and so the app takes communication and collaboration to the next level.

Most employees constantly lose their time switching between apps and tabs. That’s why Blink combines documents, news updates, and collaboration tools all at the same place. Employees can combine messaging with access to policies, training documents, and even holiday booking forms.

The app also offers tools that allow you to create micro-applications within the platform. This means you can add your integrations with leading solutions such as Dropbox, G Suite, Salesforce, etc.

5 Tools That Every Business Needs to Improve Their Remote Team Productivity

1. Slack
2. Really Simple Systems CRM
3. Zoom
4. Hubstaff
5. Blink

Without a doubt, more and more companies are moving to the cloud, and have discovered the new-found capabilities of remote work. In this article, we provided you with 5 remote technology tools for establishing a collaborative workflow, and increasing productivity. 

Whatever your choice may be, keep in mind that the right tools can create happier workers, and happy workers lead to satisfied customers.