9 Best Remote Communication Tools for an Online Team

For years, remote work has been streamlined for many industries, companies, and markets. Even before the pandemic, many companies have adapted this work setting to minimise cost, upscale their production, and increase morale.

During those times, they have implemented numerous strategies, rules, and policies to ensure that their team and company won’t fail. And while it helped stablised remote working, most companies still face issues when it comes to communication. In fact, according to a study conducted by Culture Wizard in 2018, communication is the second biggest issue faced by a virtual team.

Luckily, technology over the years has helped improve remote teams’ connectivity. In a 2020 study by Gitlab, it is said that 90% of virtual teams are satisfied with using various technology tools and apps that help them communicate.

So if you are a remote team still looking for these technology and remote communication tools, this article will help you identify your team’s top 9 communication tools!

Why is communication essential in a remote work setting?

Effective communication team is more than just talking every day. It is a great way to make your squad efficiently work as it allows everyone to attain all necessary information about their work, project, and company. With communication, a remote team can also:

• Update everyone on the status of their tasks.
• Align project goals and team objectives.
• Educate everyone with all necessary information about their functions.
• Promote camaraderie, creating harmony between the remote team.
• Boost morale as it helps them feel alone less, retaining remote developers.
• It allows employees to stay engaged, even in a remote setting.
• Builds trust between employees and leaders

9 Best Remote Communication Tools

There are many remote communication tools you can choose from on the internet. However, you should scrutinise every device before investing. The best communication tool should help your remote team have meaningful and productive collaboration. It should also not impede their tasks, such as messaging fatigue, communication lag, etc.

Here are 9 of our team’s picks on remote communication tools:

Video Conferencing Tools

While video conferencing is not a daily need for most remote work, it can help in certain circumstances. Like in-office teams, remote teams have tasks they could ideally discuss through video communication, such as strategy discussion, brainstorming, problem-solving, etc. Moreover, this communication tool can help remote teams feel better connected, similar to an in-office collaboration. The team could perceive more of what you think of an idea or data with video conferencing.

Here are remote developers’ top 3 video conferencing tools:

1. Zoom

Zoom is a cloud-based remote communication tool that allows users to set up video conferences, meetings, seminars, webinars, live chats, and more. It has been used by 10 million users daily since the pandemic. In addition, it’s free to use for one-on-one meetings and provides 40 mins of use for group meetings.

Here are some of Zoom’s best features:

• In-conference chat
• Screen sharing
• App sharing
• Call recording
• Whiteboard
• Video backgrounds, filters, and touchup
• Breakout rooms

2. Google Meet

Google Meet or Geet is Google’s free video-conferencing remote working tool, available to all of their users. Everyone with a Google account can access and create online meetings with up to 100 participants that can last up to 60 minutes per meeting.

This app can be used by individuals, organizations, businesses, and schools. It offers various features for its free version, such as

• Unlimited number of free meetings
• Live captions during the meeting
• Mobile friendly
• Virtual background
• Enhanced video
• Screen sharing
• Live messaging

Here are some of the premium features for those users using Suites:

• Breakout rooms
• Polls
• Live stream
• Hand raise
• Attendance tracking
• Record a meeting

3. Cisco Webex Meetings

Webex meetings are Cisco’s cloud-based remote communication tools and video conferencing service, allowing a remote team to collaborate through various devices. This tool is fast, safe, secure, reliable, and used by hundreds of organizations for their meeting and webinars.

• Free video calls and screen sharing
• Meeting recordings, editing, and sharing
• Compatible with various devices
• Annotation tools
• File sharing

Instant Messaging Apps

As mentioned earlier, remote teams do not need to constantly call each other to discuss. Some tasks can converse via instant messaging apps. This tool helps them save time and effort that remote teams would otherwise use to set up video meetings.

Here are our top 3 instant messaging apps.

4. Microsoft Teams

While Microsoft Teams is one whole app that provides various features to its users, it is one of many of the most used instant messaging platforms. This remote communication tool offers users multiple features, including file sharing, emojis, GIFs, threaded conversation, and rich-text editing.

You can also create group chats on Microsoft Teams and conversations in channels for external collaborators.

5. Slack

Slack is another remote communication tool with an instant messaging app that can connect people from organisations and external contributors. It’s faster, secured, and offers organizations a better organised messaging app worldwide.

This tool offers a free plan for users to create their channel and give access to 10,000 people worldwide. Likewise, here are some of its best features:

• Send meeting reminders to attendees
• Make voice and video calls
• Various in-app tools and integration
• Privatization of some channels

6. Discord

Discord is a free remote working tool with millions of people using voice, video, and text chat apps. The company initially made this application to cater to video games, gamers, and those associated with that niche. But today, Discord is used by millions of professionals, academia, and communities to communicate or as an alternative to slack. Here are some of its prominent features:

• Video background
• Screenshare
• Voice and video calls
• Create unlimited free servers and channels
• Privatization of some channels
• App integration in the form of “bot.”
• Play and listen to music together using bots

Project Management Tools

Likewise, communication is sometimes not enough for a remote team to be productive. In this case, a project management tool with superb communication will help your remote team members. It can give you and your team the ability to organise your tasks, collaborate with other team members, and efficiently complete each task and project.

 Here are our top 3 project management tools with excellent communication features:

7. ClickUp

ClickUp is one of the most popular collaboration tools for your remote team. It is a cloud-based project management tool that can be used by any type or size of business and industry. Also, it can be a great online communication tool for a remote team. Moreover, it has an in-app communication and collaboration tool where users can comment on specific tasks and tag other users.

Here are some of its top features:

• Duties assignments and user tagging
• Tasks break down into small and specific tasks
• File sharing
• Whiteboard, perfect for brainstorming and visual collaboration
• Real-time reporting with visualized dashboard
• Goals tracker

8. Basecamp

Basecamp is another remote working platform, perfect for project management and team communication. Although this software is an all-in-one toolkit for remote working, it has a great feature that is better for remote communication, unlike other tools such as:

• Social chatter between team members
• Companywide discussion and posts
• Idea sharing and collaboration
• App integrations
• Team schedule posting
• Message board for announcements

9. Monday.com

Monday.com is a cloud-based remote working tool and operating system that helps the team manage their project to create a more transparent collaboration. What makes Monday.com unique for remote team communication because this app allows users to use central and micro contact, eliminating the need for repetition of messages.

Bonus!

And if you are looking for a unique way to communicate with your team members or conduct an event, you should try this next app!

10. Gather

Gather is a newly launched application that can help companies or teams create a more human-like interaction but virtually. The app lets you create your world where you can walk to your coworkers and communicate with them. Moreover, the app can use features like Whiteboard, a social game, a podium, a video stream, and more! Check out their app and tool experience.

Are you looking to hire your remote team of developers?

And that’s it! These 9 plus 1 bonus remote communication tools can help you and your team on your remote work journey. But don’t forget to look at the features and see if it perfectly fits your need before investing.

But if you still don’t have a remote team of your own, you Hire your remote team with us! Contact us now!