According to a McKinsey analysis, the average professional spends 28% of the workday reading and answering email.
This is largely due to the sheer number of messages that they received daily – 120 of them.
Email was once at the forefront of convenience.
Used as a way to quickly send messages and share files from anywhere in the world, it was — and, for many, still is — a primary tool to communicate with friends, family, and colleagues.
However, over the past several years, the proliferation of chat apps, SMS, and social messaging platforms has largely displaced this more traditional form of online messaging.
In 2016, instant messaging and texting (e.g. SMS and chat apps) were the first things 35% of consumers checked in the morning, according to Deloitte, up from 29% in 2014.
Meanwhile, 22% of consumers checked their email first, down from 29% in 2014.
And as these communication channels enhance their capabilities and add more functionality, the threat to email’s sustainability will increase.
What is Instant Messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat that offers real-time text transmission over the Internet.
IM actually predates the Internet when they first appear in the mid-1960s.
Driven by individual employees using consumer software at work, adoption of IM has grown exponentially.
A local building material company I know uses Whatsapp for management and Telegram for Engineering.
For these two groups to interact quickly, it is either more emails or they gravitate to SMS.
Imagine the number of platforms to manage just to communicate.
Unifying them all securely
That is one of the motivations that PeopleStrong developed Zippi – a mobile-first enterprise-level messaging app.
There are five key benefits that Zippi brings to an organisation:
1. No sign-ups required
Because of integration with your company’s HRIS, users automatically get added to the app and the same login credentials could be used.
This also means that you can use the app as a company directory to find and initiate a chat with anyone within the organisation.
2. Break-free from emails
Don’t have an active directory in your organisation?
No worries. Simply create the user credential on admin panel and issue them out to your users.
Email is not even a required item so you can simply generate your preferred user id.
3. Smart groups
Rule-based groups can be predefined so any new employees would automatically be added to their respective groups. E.g. the new Marketing person would be in the Marketing group from the get-go.
Most importantly, employees that are leaving the organisations are automatically removed and this prevents any access to past and future confidential information.
4. Focussed conversation
With conversations flying around, things can get cluttered. Having the ability to do threaded conversations within chats allow laser focus on things that matters.
Tagging of important messages can also be done and that allows quick reference in the future.
You can even have your own Wall-Of-Fame as giving and receiving appreciation within the app is possible.
5. Secure collaboration
With data privacy under an intense spotlight, it is paramount that confidential information is protected at all time.
With Zippi, all messages in transit and at rest are encrypted.
Media shared cannot be taken out of the application, preventing data theft.
In fact, you can’t even take a screenshot on your Android when you are in the app.
That is how secure Zippi is.
Future Roadmap
As a SaaS, there are constantly new features and any existing users will automatically get to enjoy them as well.
And coming really soon, the following are being worked into future releases:
- Self Serve model – DIY
- Multi Workspace Support
- Multi-Lingual Support
- 3rd Part Bot Integration
- Quiz
- Audio Video Calling
- UI Revamp
Case Study
V-Mart is a complete family fashion store that provides its customers with true value for their money.
With over 8,000 employees (most of them distributed across the country), communication with employees can be tricky.
Let alone attempts to ensure a consistent employee experience.
Due to this, getting information internally becomes a chore. And due to lack of a direct and quick communication channel, new policies and practices often remain stuck in manuals.
V-Mart adopted Zippi to tackle this problem and immediately reap the following benefits:
- There was no signup required as the system operates on employee data. All employees gain instant access. Especially in the retail industry when many workforces do not have official email addresses.
- Connectivity infrastructure remains a challenge where 3G still isn’t the norm. The lightweight of Zippi allows the app to run extremely well even on 2G networks.
- Importantly the ability to reach out to the right people timely has increased collaboration and the sense of belonging within the organisation.
[reminder]Keen to learn more about Zippi and what it can do for your organisation?[/reminder]
