Helen Keller said: “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” A team works best when they are pursuing a common goal together, and communication is key. Even with the best interests at heart, it can be challenging to get everyone on the same page. Worry not. Keep reading to learn about some different technologies that can help your team collaborate effectively.

What is good team collaboration?

Good team collaboration is where individual work can come together smoothly to help achieve greater success as a team. From huge companies to small and medium businesses, everyone works together as a unit for success. The size and scope of a team differ depending on the business, but collaboration is always a must.

“Appointing a team is frequently the only way to assemble the knowledge and breadth required to pull off many of the complex tasks businesses face today.”

Harvard Business Review

Strategies for outstanding team collaboration

We know what good team collaboration is, but how do we promote it? Here are some strategies that can help you create a collaborative environment at work.

Communicate your thoughts clearly

If you want your team members to work well together, you need to communicate your thoughts clearly. One way you can achieve this is by using software that allows you to leave internal notes to any of your team members. Let’s say you want one of your employees, Colin, to speak with a customer, Greg. Greg has been a loyal customer, and you want Colin to give Greg a 20% discount. By leaving an internal note to Colin, he will be notified of this task. These notes will be visible to everyone and will promote transparency and accountability as well as team collaboration. With Birdeye Messaging, leaving internal notes for team collaboration is easier than ever.

Promote community

A sense of community within a team brings a sense of belonging. Either as a team leader or a team member, foster the spirit of community. This can look like a few ice-breakers with new team members, team lunches, or just a fun activity for the team every few weeks.

Invest in the right collaboration tools

A team needs shared technological resources to work well together. For a team to be successful, they need to have equal access to the right tools at work. For day-to-day project management, try apps like Asana or Jira. It is also helpful to have a hub where teams can chat throughout the day. For team communications, try Google Hangouts, Slack, or Glip.

However, many businesses also need a wide-reaching customer messaging platform to help them work effectively. When using Birdeye’s Interactions, teams can save time by managing all customer interactions from a single dashboard. Teams can be more vigilant and are less likely to miss messages from customers because everything is in one place. Furthermore, accurate local business listings can really help. A customer interaction platform helps you organize all of your customer communications, ensuring a smooth and seamless workflow. All features of Interactions are optimized for mobile use, helping teams keep track of their work and manage their customer interactions even while on the go.

As a business owner, you need to make sure that your team and staff have all of the right tools in their arsenal. These tools will help them use their time wisely and be better equipped to meet their targets. 

Respect everybody’s time

You must respect everybody’s time — you, your staff and employees, your customers, and your future customers. Nobody enjoys being stuck doing repetitive tasks. If you are a business that gets 20 calls every day asking for your address, it’s a drain on your resources to have someone just answer the phone. It’s also a waste of your staff’s and your customers’ time.

With the help of technology, this problem can be easily solved. First off, make sure that your listings are accurate, especially your Google Business Profile. This can be done easily using reputation management software. Secondly, install a customer interaction platform. Using this software you can have livechat installed on your website, which can help answer the customers’ questions in a timely manner. By freeing up your team’s time, you are also ensuring that they have the resources to focus on other tasks.

Give Freedom

If you listen to ex-Google HR genius Laszlo Bock, one tip to build a better workplace is to give your team freedom. “If you give people freedom, they will repay you by being more productive and effective. But most organizations are not structured like that. You want to give people a little more freedom than you’re comfortable with,” he said. Giving freedom also means that you trust the team member to see a task through, which only helps create a better work environment. 

Example of successful team collaboration

When everything comes together, you can see the results. For example, let’s talk about Echo Wireless.  

Echo Wireless is an Internet Service Provider based in Brownwood, Texas. The company provides fixed wireless Internet services to rural areas in Texas & New Mexico. Echo Wireless has different teams for tech support, sales, and billing with different online communications channels for each team. In August 2019, the management realized that all these teams interacted with customers, but don’t have an easy way to interact with them across channels. Echo Wireless realized they needed to simplify their customer engagement and combine all their teams’ online customer interactions into one easy platform. Their search led them to Birdeye. With a single unified dashboard, all the messages are visible and easily accessible in one place.

Using Birdeye, Echo Wireless team was able to collaborate and communicate better as well. This is because the single dashboard model also promotes transparency and a smooth workflow. For Echo Wireless this meant increased revenue.

“Birdeye has completely restructured the way we do business. We’re more agile in converting our sales leads because of Birdeye webchat, and we’re seeing over twice as many internet search inquiries due to our ratings & reviews”

Brandy Mills, Operational Manager

How to use Birdeye to promote team collaboration

Everything is more fun when you do it as a team. With the help of Birdeye Messaging, you can do it all from a single dashboard. You can communicate clearly using internal notes, establish multiple channels of communication such as Webchat and mass texting, and view all communication from one centralized inbox.

Interested to learn more about how you collaborate better?