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The Beatles once sang, “Help! I need somebody, not just anybody. Won’t somebody please, please help me.” Managers, C-suite, and employees can surely relate to these words, throughout their career. 

There comes a time when all enterprises must face a crisis, be it big or small. One that has affected the globe is, without a doubt, Covid-19. However, crises have come and gone well before Covid-19, and not all enterprises have been as successful as KFC to overcome them.

As Warren Buffet said, “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”  

In today’s uber-connected world, there is ultimately no room for error when it comes to getting on top of a crisis. Even the cost of reacting too slowly, or ineffectively, grows by the minute. BP Oil and Volkswagen know something about this. 

A crisis is often complicated, and it is impossible to understand how long it will last. As the crisis unfolds in real-time, circumstances can radically change, as will the requirements, roles, and responsibilities of the various people involved. 

The types of messages will also change when in crisis mode, and the information audiences need and how they need to receive will be different to day-to-day operations.

When it comes to communicating during a crisis, the tools at your disposal become key in the success or failure of overcoming it. 

We have come to learn as “crisis experts” that the damage caused by a crisis is not so much its nature but rather how well it is handled once it is at your door. There are three crucial elements to successful crisis management:

• Readiness.
• Fact-based approach.
• How effective (all!) stakeholder communication is.

Messagenius offers admins Incident Rooms, Systematised tasks, Location Finder, and many more fundamental features that are not only helpful but are necessary to face a crisis head-on.

Expected and Unexpected Crises

There are contingencies that many enterprises take to avoid minor/major crises. Let’s take hospitals, for example. 

There are times that sudden peaks for emergency care are expected, such as Saturday nights and flu season. Then there are the unexpected, like a horrific crash on the freeway.

However, there can also be expected and unexpected variations internally, such as vacation time or last-minute sick leave. Traditionally, the patients are often made to absorb the effects of this gap by having to wait.

Contingencies are put in place to replace a sick colleague or vacation plans or have people on call during flu season and weekends. While in case of unexpected emergencies, being able to reach the right people needs to be instant and seamless. 

Using the Right Tools

Many businesses are still using services such as SMS, email, pagers, and phone systems, to alert various department heads.

However, these systems are not only out of date but usually very expensive, often ineffective, and do not offer the assurance that the alert will be received. Imagine trying to send an email to a surgeon in case of a critical event. 

Take pagers, for example, additional devices need to be carried in addition to the smartphone to receive alerts. 

Most of these systems do not provide proper delivery and read receipts. That’s why there is often confusion on whether or not the right person received or has seen an alert. 

It is no secret that people pay more attention to mobile messages, but it is not just perception. The stats speak clearly, and they say that messages received via mobile have an open rate of 98%, whereas traditional email has an open rate of only 22%.

Additionally, these outdated systems are often not the best solution for fast and effective group communication, and both are essential for coordinating teams in crisis mode. 

Team chats for secure work communications are increasingly popular, as they offer managers the right tools in times of a crisis (and beyond). 

The Studies

69% of the 2,084 senior executives in organisations of all sizes, in 25 industries, and across 43 countries reported at least one crisis in the last five years, according to PwC’s Global Crisis Survey 2019. 

Another study, a joint effort by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and Forbes Insights, asked over 300 board members the following question:

Having been through a crisis, what are your company’s lessons, or what would you do differently?

• 34% Do more to identify crisis scenario
• 32% Improve detection and early warning systems   
• 29% Execute a more timely and robust communications plan 
• 29% Communicate more effectively with employees

These studies highlighted the importance of efficient coordination, decision making, and, more importantly, communication as fundamental steps in resolving a crisis. 

The board, the C-Suite, and employees must work together, and this is where secure chat solutions for companies, like Messagenius, are fundamental for effective crisis communication. 

4 Advantages of Messagenius in Crisis Communication:

Using the tools provided by Messagenius during a crisis, offer enterprises and the public sector several essential advantages: 

1. Rapid alerting of teams, departments and external emergency services.
2. The group chats are perfect for direct feedback and follow-up communication
3. Chats can also be set up based on mission, topic, or location.
4. Sharing necessary emergency procedures, evacuation plans, mission photos, technical manuals, etc.is quick and seamless.

Whether you are in Finance, Education, Healthcare or the Armed Forces, Messagenius ensures employees and the C-suite are informed and ready to act when the unexpected strikes. Contact Us today for a free consultation. 

Overcome a Crisis

One thing is for sure, crises can be overcome, but it takes teamwork, a united front, and, more importantly, strong communication between the entire enterprise. Crisis communication needs to engage employees before incidents occur during the event and after it has ended. 

An organisation that ignores the powerful features of secure chat solutions for companies, may suffer more harm than necessary during a crisis, simply because they are unprepared.

Messagenius has a diverse range of tools for each stage of the crisis, which will help any enterprise, of any industry, overcome a crisis through a secure, compliant, and fully integrated messaging app.  

Do not wait for a crisis to take place to act. Prepare for the unexpected and test Messagenius out today and secure the present and future of your enterprise. 

Up until a few years ago, you could say that instant messaging was seen more as a personal communication tool, one that you would use to write to friends and family. 

Today, instant messaging has revolutionised the ever-evolving workplace around the world. Employees can now communicate with each other via secure enterprise messaging apps without leaving their office or their homes. 

While more and more enterprises have been using instant messaging apps for some time, many misconceptions still exist. It is no surprise with all the news stories on hacks and issues with WhatsApp, Zoom, Telegram, Slack, Signal, and Microsoft Teams, to name a few. 

There are big differences between the usage, functionalities, security, compliance standard, and overall quality of consumer vs. enterprise-grade apps. 

In the early 2000s, researchers had already found many benefits instant messaging would bring to enterprises. Twenty years on, and there are still many misconceptions keeping organisations and their workforce behind. 

Let’s take a look at the ten most common misconceptions today:

1. WhatsApp, Zoom, Facebook Messenger are the highest standard of IM app

The most common misconception is that consumer-grade apps are fit for the task. Since so many people use WhatsApp, it is safe to say that it is the best, right? Wrong. 

Secure enterprise messaging apps work on entirely different principles and are built with your professional needs in mind. 

While Messagenius is user-friendly and set out like a consumer-grade app, the built-in features that keep your workplace secure and connected are entirely different. 

Read more on the high-quality features that make up a great secure enterprise messaging app. 

2. Instant messaging apps are distracting and counter-productive

If you use an app for work that your employees use to keep in touch with family and friends, then yes, it can be distracting. 

Just as the offline environment around employees needs to promote work and productivity, so should the chat environment.

Secure enterprise messaging app is designed to offer fast, real-time communication in the workplace, increasing efficiency and productivity.

According to a study by Software Advice, on nearly 150 employees using enterprise-grade messaging apps for work, 66% found it easier to overcome small issues faster. 70% agreed that time was saved via instant messaging rather than phone calls or emails, and 21% saw a moderate to a significant increase in their productivity.

3. Creates silos between teams and colleagues

For enterprises concerned that instant messaging will decrease teamwork and collaboration, as well as face to face communication, there is no evidence that it has a bigger impact than any other communication tool. 

However, a study conducted in 2018 found that reducing workplace distraction increased productivity. The study also found that the biggest distractions at work were small talk with colleagues, meetings, phone calls, and office noise.

Adding an instant messenger will create an environment that allows for fewer outside distractions but increase camaraderie.

Professor Amabile, who co-authored The Progress Principle, says, “People are more creative and productive when they experience more positive inner work life, including more positive emotions, stronger motivation toward the work itself and more positive perceptions of the organisation.”

4. Management has no control

That may be true with consumer-grade apps; however, at Messagenuis, we know that being a leader means knowing how well your team is doing, how productive each department is, and the importance of having a solid overview of your enterprise. 

With a secure enterprise messaging app, you can count on having all this detail, as well as being able to remove people from specific chats, creating personal conversations, inform when you are available, and many more features.

Read more on the special features Messagenius offers Admins. 

5. Secure enterprise messaging apps do not have special features over WhatsApp or Zoom.

The quick answer is they do. Secure enterprise messaging apps offer many more features than any consumer-grade app can ever provide. 

As per the point above, managers and IT leaders have a dedicated dashboard with key analytics, but they can count on several other great features. Such as self-destructing messages, blast messages to reach your entire organisation, message delivery tracking, biometric authentication, to name a few. 

Want to know more? Check out all the great features offered by Messagenius. 

6. Instant messaging chats are a high-level security risk

Security and privacy are a primary concern for any enterprise. It is also the reason why enterprises do not invest in instant messaging apps. If you are looking at WhatsApp, Zoom, or Slack, for example, then yes, privacy policies are ambiguous, and security breaches are a constant worry. 

Enterprise messaging apps offer stringent security, and your privacy is not a commodity to sell to the highest bidder. 

These enterprise-grade apps are created so that your organisation can share and store sensitive data in a secure and, more importantly, compliant IT environment.  

Test Messagenius out today to make your enterprise secure. 

7. Instant messaging apps can cost a lot of money, and they don’t provide an ROI. 

For many, adding instant messaging to the workforce does not provide ROI, but they are wrong.

A failure to implement social technology decreases the productivity of high-skill employees and management by 20-25%, according to McKinsey and Company. 

Secure enterprise messaging apps benefit the whole organisation in terms of team calls/chats, file sharing, incident reports, data sharing, and productivity. 

But the benefits do not stop at the technical aspects of these apps. By introducing the right instant messaging app in your workplace, you are investing in a complete transformation of your workplace culture, driven by employee productivity. 

8. Instant Messaging apps are difficult to manage in a professional environment

Secure enterprise messaging apps, like Messagenius, help IT leaders keep the work-chat environment professional. 

These security-centric apps will add value to your day-to-day business tasks. For example, one of Messagenius’ features is admin control rooms. 

Admins can create public or private channels for one or all the operators online, who, apart from having a regular chat list, also have a dashboard from where they manage all the requests and work-related issues. 

Discover our features such as Live Location, and create a seamless and secure working environment. 

9. Email is better than instant messaging

Resistance to change is one of the biggest threats to any enterprise. As generation Z, and millennials before them, enter the workforce, the change will be required for any enterprise to continue to exist.

As the exchange of information moves faster towards ‘real-time’ communication, email can no longer handle all the requirements of a modern workplace. 

Instant messaging apps are fundamental to enterprises and are to be used together with email. 

10.  Instant messaging can be intrusive

Even email is considered to be intrusive, so much so that France introduced a law against emailing employees after 6 pm. In Italy and the UK, there are no laws but, are they necessary?

With the right internal communication strategy, instant messaging does not need to be intrusive, and you can achieve the desired work-life balance. 

Bottom Line

Secure enterprise messaging apps are not merely technologies for the future or only specific industries. 

They help improve productivity, facilitate collaboration, quicken the execution of business processes, provide a high level of security, reap assured ROI, and add value to the short and long-term business operations. 

The dynamic nature of secure enterprise messaging apps means that they are an integral part of a variety of workplaces. 

Are you ready to reap the benefits of Messagenius? Do not waste any more time, Contact Us, and empower your enterprise today. 

Smart, efficient and transparent management is possible.

Secure enterprise messaging has become an important part of any workplace, as IT leaders rely heavily on communication, productivity through collaboration, and smart management. 

These apps allow for streamlining internal and external communication channels, as well as secure data, and ensure enterprises comply with regulatory requirements. 

While reliability and industry compliance is fundamental to enterprises, IT leaders require messaging technologies that offer administrative control, as well as being user-friendly.  

Through the understanding of the technology, top management and decision-makers can start to adopt a platform that can face the demands of today’s workplace. 

Take a look at how a secure enterprise messaging app can help you.  

Stay in Control

One of the most important aspects when being a leader is knowing how well your team is doing, how productive each department is, and, more importantly, having this detail at the touch of a screen. 

With a secure instant messaging app, you can rely on a Management dashboard, aka your control center.

Here you have a summary of all the interactions and communications between employees, tasks started/completed, incident reports, and more, with the bonus of having all the information graphed and well set out for ease of use. 

This dashboard allows you or an assigned manager to identify bottlenecks in any workflow, especially when it comes to cross-department communication or field workers.

Blast Messages

Another difficult task for admins is getting the message across to all departments, in a direct manner. 

Blast Messages let managers reach all or specific departments without the trouble of searching for particular contacts or worrying that a department gets left out. 

Send Blast Messages through a two-step verification process, so you will not be sending the wrong message out. Ever. 

Message delivery tracking

When having to delegate a large number of tasks to managers or department heads, knowing that your message goes to the right person is key. 

With proof-of-receipt and biometric authentication, your message is opened and read by the right recipient, at all times. 

The sent messages are opened either through the use of a fingerprint or a numerical code/captcha.

An alert is sent to the admin informing them the message was received, opened and read by the intended user.

Priority messages

There are times when things either take a turn for the worst, such as a mistake derailing an entire project or you need to prioritise one task over another. 

As an admin, you can set up “high priority” labels, so particular messages get pinned to the top of a recipient’s screen. 

These priority messages are highlighted to separate them from the rest of your messages.

Admin Control rooms

Admins are required to be in different places at once, and we know that it is virtually impossible. Or is it?

An admin control room is one account for all the operators online, who, apart from having a regular chat list, also have a dashboard from where they manage all the requests and work-related issues.

These chats are displayed in easy-to-read cards, allowing you to view various conversations at the same time. 

Additionally, the live location feature lets you and members of that room know where each field worker is, by displaying messages on a map to easily recognize the sender, as well as deliver blast messages or emergency signals. 

Incident rooms 

Knowing when an emergency is happening in real-time can save lives in a hospital, for example. 

Or when an intern sends confidential information to stakeholders, and a prompt response is required to protect years of hard work. 

An incident room can be opened by any field worker to highlight a problem, and all appropriate contacts are added automatically to the chat room. 

All contacts will have an overview of the issue at the start of the chat: who created the incident room, as well as the role, position, duty, issue category, and the location of the worker creating the incident room. 

Preset tasks help to complete the job and encourage members to see what needs to be done to fix the incident as efficiently as possible. 

Members can pick up one or more tasks by clicking on the preset assignment. 

Once resolved, download the PDF document, which will include participant information, issue type, time-stamped chat history, voice messages transcribed into text, and any images exchanged during the completion of the incident.

Automated task assignment and reminders

Calendars or reminders on your phone can be useful in your personal life. However, as an admin, you need to ensure that there is an easy and effective way to remind a team or entire enterprise of certain jobs.

Through this feature, preset tasks are set up by admins and displayed as an easy to read button. Once a job is picked, a description of the task at hand will appear for the user. 

A notification is then sent to the admin, showing who picked up the task, at what time, and its successful completion.

Availability statuses

Knowing about an incident in real-time is surely useful; however, it is only helpful if you are around to delegate the problem or solve it yourself. 

Let your employees and peers know when you are available via a preset status such as ‘out of office,’ ‘do not disturb,’ or ‘in a meeting.’ Alternatively, customize your very own status. 

Change your statuses yourself and on the spot or set them up for a specific time (1 hour, two weeks, until 4 PM, etc.), after which it will return to the default status: “available” and you can take the lead once again.

Systematise

Being in control also means understanding when you need to take full control or if it is the right time to let others provide useful insights; otherwise, conversations can get distracting and confusing. 

The Systematise feature allows you to control the conversation and can set up who can read or who can reply to your messages. 

More importantly, you can set this up in numerous chats so you can communicate effectively with different teams or departments and delegate what needs completion.

And finally

In today’s ever-evolving workplaces, IT leaders need a secure enterprise messaging app that not only helps them stay connected but also assists their employees to be more productive. 

The right app will make it easier for high-level decision-makers to deploy and manage tasks based on the scale of the organization today and the size it will grow into in the years to come.

Read more on how instant messaging can help enterprise messaging systems increase productivity.

An easy way to communicate at work is essential, but surprisingly challenging to get right.

In today’s ever-evolving workforce, the ‘when, where, and how we work‘ continues to shift, employees need communication platforms that increase efficiency and productivity. It’s time for employers to integrate state-of-the-art tools that empower their employees and increase their workplace flexibility but decreases their costs. Used effectively, instant messaging will lead to a culture of teamwork, collaboration, and security, which, in effect, make the business more productive.

Instant Messaging improves communication

In a survey conducted from November 2017 and January 2018, by the corporate arm of the Economist,

“Respondents say communication barriers are leading to a delay or failure to complete projects (44%), low morale (31%), missed performance goals (25%) and even lost sales (18%)—some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars”.  

Source

Instant messaging is less distracting than a phone call and more direct than an email response, as well as the bonus of being able to monitor whether your contact is available or not. Users may set up status messages to remind others whether they are away, which adds to the usefulness of instant messaging as a beneficial communication device.

Effective interactions between team members are the key to productivity.

Less distracting, more personal

A 2018 study found that reducing workplace distraction, increased productivity. The study also found that the biggest distractions at work were small talk with colleagues, meetings, phone calls, and office noise.

Respondents perceived that if these issues could be resolved with a more direct line of contact: 75% would be more productive, 57% would be more motivated to work to the best of their ability, 51% would be more confident in their ability to complete their tasks well, 49% would be happier at work, and 44% would deliver higher quality work. 

Source: Udemy In Depth – 2018 Workplace Distraction Report

By default, interacting with employees through instant messaging enables them to be succinct and to the point. Instant messaging apps should eliminate much of the internal churn and duplication of visits and emails. It even provides more personal contact between remote workers and managers.

Return on investment

The words any manager wants to see. ROI is an essential metric for efficiency, and replacing travel expenses has been one of the most significant advantages of instant messaging. Already in 2004, Radicati Group created a report on the economic and efficiency gains of instant messaging. 

In the report, employees were provided with two typical daily tasks, both with and without instant messaging, and found that companies could save an average of 40 minutes a day per user with instant messaging. They estimated that an organization with 5,000 people could see a $37.5 million a year savings in productivity.

Today, companies in the US alone waste 15% of their time and $37 billion on unproductive meetings, while in the UK, a research found that by improving connectivity and using instant messaging technology, employers would recover 3.14 hours of work per week. That is a staggering 18 extra working days per year, and a £34.1 billion gain in productivity, with the right tool.

While meetings are necessary from time to time, a workplace messaging app can help your team eliminate the bulk of them, as well as help you save money.

Quick search, faster results

The average worker spends 20% of each week trying to locate their colleagues and track information, according to McKinsey. From the data above, we know that improving communication in the workplace solves part of that problem. With the help of built-in search tools that are standard features in the leading instant messaging apps, workers can locate vital job details the same way they would perform a search on Google.

Security

What was the average cost of data breaches in 2019 globally? Over $3.92 million per country, with the UK and Italy in the top 10 countries in the world facing such threats and high costs. So, securing your data is fundamental to your productivity, as much as any of the points above. The improved privacy and protection of data that instant messaging provides may be the most significant advantages for your company. Although the use of free consumer-grade chat apps for work-related communication poses privacy and security risks (read our post), company instant messengers, such as Messagenius, help businesses of all sizes avoid the next data breach.

Mobile messaging apps are crucial to business communication today, as the workforce is becoming increasingly mobile. There’s no denying the workforce is changing. Consider that around 40 percent of the workforce works remotely at some frequency, 73 percent of companies are projected to have remote workers by 2028 and that the global mobile workforce is expected to reach 1.87 billion people.

With workplace instant messaging technology, team members can communicate efficiently and stay engaged, both critical factors to achieve increased productivity. From an organization’s perspective, when the technology is used to its maximum potential, return on investment is a guarantee, by saving time, as well as securing your data, which all lead to higher levels of productivity.

Take your enterprise to the next level with Messagenius. Contact us today on how we can help your workforce achieve high productivity.