So, 2020 is approaching rapidly and we're all still day in, day out controlled by our Inbox and sent items. Pressing the refresh button to see if anything is there. Notifications, communication, files, all is managed to this one medium. In the past all was done by phone, fax and the letters or packages. Email was a gift from heaven. But nowadays it takes up too much of our time. Email is misused for its intended purpose. Why send contracts or files via email? You can better give them the link to the file instead. The file is kept in place, you both have the same version.
I know people that live inside their Outlook client, like it's their living room. Email should be for your personal use. Ofcourse, you can share folders, calendars etc, but is wasn't meant to be. If you work at a company that works in teams, why not use a tool that is meant to work in such matter. Nowadays people would like to choose a way to contact your company in a way, they prefer. Email and phones were that for a long time. But for a couple of years we see that the public uses social channels to get the info they need. Emailing takes too much time, you don't know if the person you're sending to is there to respond, yep sure you can set up an 'out-of-office' notification, but why can't I see if he's available? If I can see in my screen if he is on the phone, or out for lunch or enjoying a day off, I know what to do. As long as you can centralize most of the communication via 1 tool, you're on the right track. A tool that takes most of the channels to one place. Communication runs via 1 tool. You can easily divide the workload, you can see what your colleague told the customer, you can see the contact-moments. Now all this info is well hidden in the users mailboxes. Filled with folders and attachments. Zendesk will help you with all communication. Snappy interface, great features and of course in the cloud.
Can we quit email? "Just don't obtain an email adres at all". Well, you would like that perhaps, but most of the services that you use make use of the email service to create your account and authenticate yourself. There is a shift going on from email to sms, but we're not there yet.
Office365, email and chat
Microsoft offers both solutions. Mail, calendar and contacts via Exchange. Chat via Skype for Business.
If you quit mail, you won't be able to receive any calendar invites, well that's not very handy. Skype for Business is a great tool to chat with colleagues or external contacts. Conversations can be stored in your email, yes email, as well. When you miss a conversation, Skype4b will deliver the message to your 'Conversation history' so no word is lost in space. You can also use voice instead of typing, share your screen or attend an online meeting. Microsoft will never abandon email, it's the heart of their company, Exchange is used to manage all communication to you.
Slack versus the rest
No legacy, clean sheet. Go chat! Go speed. Despite of the lack of a few features, you can really benefit from this tool. So what can you do with it? Team-Chat is the basics of Slack. You can chat in channels. For instance a channel Sales, Administration, Support. It uses # and @ for their well known features. You can make a voice call one on one, or to multiple people. You can share you content via these channels, of just send the link to a certain file or article stored elsewhere online. Yes, search it there. Yes, you can use all known devices to use this service. Browser, client, apps, all there.
So why isn't everybody using Slack? Most companies are built on a on premise legacy, that despite of the fact that can run next to it, people fear the extra work that Slack will bring to them. Well, that is what they think of course. There will be a shift of communication from mail to chat. All internal communication can run via chat. And what about CC? Well, stop CC. If it's that important people to read it, the should be in the TO field of an email. In Zendesk you can use the same @ command to mention people that you want to inform. No need to be an email to your colleague. He can read everything in his browser or mobile app.