The 11 Best Internal Communication Apps for Business [2024]

Effective communication is the foundation of every successful organization. Dispersed teams, remote workers, individual contributors, and those working within rigid hierarchies must all be able to instantly and effectively communicate with colleagues, managers, and all relevant stakeholders.

Far too often, the lack of a robust internal communication strategy is responsible for project delays, employee disengagement, and ultimately breakdowns. That’s where internal communication apps come into play. These platforms allow users to communicate directly, within groups or channels, share files, video calls, and collaborate, all within the tool.

What is Internal Communication?

Internal communication in business is all about sharing information, ideas, and thoughts within a company. It’s crucial for team success, enabling members to collaborate and work towards common goals.

Think of internal communication as the lifeblood of your business. It’s the flow of information that keeps everyone on the same page, working together to crush goals. A solid internal communication strategy maps out what the company wants to achieve and exactly how everyone will work together to get there.

In the old days, internal communication might have meant company-wide emails or bulletin boards. Now, internal communication apps are like walkie-talkies for your entire team. Imagine: no more information silos, just a smooth flow of ideas that keeps everyone in the loop and moving forward.

Below, we’ve curated our top picks for internal communication in the workplace and lay out their pros, cons. As new solutions come to the market, we will continually update it, so bookmark this page and check it often. Technology software moves at a fast pace, so the best solution for today might not be the best solution for tomorrow.

How we Chose the Best Internal Communication Apps for Business

We considered the following criteria when choosing the best internal communication apps for business:

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11 Best Internal Communication Apps for Business

1. Spike

Spike is an all-in-one productivity platform that delivers business chat for teams as part of a wider suite of work tools. It excels at serving as an instant messaging software in business because it’s built on top of something every business already uses: email.

Spike turns your average inbox into a supercharged instant messaging tool that’s easy to use because it looks and feels like a messenger application. The simplicity of email, a tool that practically every employee is already comfortable with, has been brought into the 21st century by stripping away all the unwanted clutter like headers and signatures.

What’s more, because Spike is based on open source protocols, layered over your email, it can work internally and externally with all stakeholders – no closed-silo communications here. This means whether you’re talking with colleagues about the latest project or doing customer support for your most important client, Spike’s got you covered.

Collaboration Goes Beyond Communication for Effective Businesses

Spike includes collaborative online notes with synchronized real-time editing available to both Spike users and anyone outside of your company who needs to be part of the project. Spike users can edit their Notes inside the Spike app, while non-Spike users can edit right inside of a web browser.

Spike also offers Groups, which allows your business to divide contacts by team, project, or anything else. These groups are then able to collaborate through email chat, file sharing, pictures, videos, GIFs, and more, and have the option to send voice messages or jump on a call at the tap of a button.

Align With Team Members for more Streamlined Collaboration

In the modern workplace, there are often things pulling us in a thousand different directions, which is in addition to our personal lives. Spike allows you to get your work life in order using tasks and to-do lists, so you can spend less time worrying about what’s on your plate.

Spike also enables users to align all their calendars in a single place to save swapping back and forth between different apps. All your team can then easily align their calendars from within their Inbox, where they’re already chatting!

Business Chat using Voice Messages

Instant messaging is a fantastic tool for businesses of any size, but nothing holds a candle to actually speaking when it comes to more complex communication. However, in the modern world of work, teams can be distributed across different cities, states, and time zones, so finding a time to talk can be impossible.

This problem is where Voice Messages shine! There is a reason there has been a steady growth in audio-only services in recent years, and business communication is no exception. Spike offers Voice Messages for when you need to be more expressive, all from within the same chat platform.

Business Chat with Video Meetings

Video meetings and business chat are used for two very different things. One is simple and fast – a quick and clean way to communicate something with a few lines of text. The other is useful when a topic needs further explanation, or a lot of back-and-forth discussion is inevitable.

They are different tools for different jobs. That’s why with Spike, you can seamlessly switch between the two. In the middle of a chat with a colleague? Simply hit the Video Meeting button if you need to hash out some details quickly.

Intuitive Design for Better Business Communication

Spike offers a simple modern design that creates a digital workspace with all of the tools needed for any business, including email, chat, group chat, file sharing, online Notes with collaboration, and more.

Through the use of a clean interface with all tools readily available, all employees can quickly and easily get to grips with Spike. Having everything in a single place, nobody gets lost in the web of apps other digital workspaces are based upon.

Business Chat – Where You Need It When You Need It

Spike is also cross-platform, meaning it works seamlessly on Mac, PC, Android, iOS, and even a web version so those on Chromebooks can use this instant messaging tool in the workplace. Spike has a free version for personal use and offers plenty of flexibility with pricing for business users.

Simple and Secure Business Chat with Spike

Spike is fast to deploy because a user only has to sign in with their existing Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 login to get signed up. A company IT department can easily deploy the Spike app to company devices to have everyone chatting in no time.

What’s more, once deployed, this business chat is always secure. Spike is ad-free and doesn’t rent, sell, distribute or monetize your data. Furthermore, message data is encrypted using AES-256 encryption, and the whole platform has passed a security audit by an independent security evaluator.

How Good is Spike as a Business Chat App?

Let’s use our criteria to have a quick overview of how Spike stacks up as a business chat solution.

2. Message Desk

MessageDesk is a shared team inbox built around business text messaging, website chat, and forms. The platform’s user-friendly interface and integration capabilities make it a versatile tool for businesses and organizations aiming to streamline their communication processes, improve customer engagement, and enhance operational efficiency.

Who’s MessageDesk best suited for?

MessageDesk works well for small to medium-sized businesses with teams that communicate primarily using SMS. It’s well-suited for organizations and teams looking for efficient ways to communicate with their customers, members, or clients.

It provides tools for mass texting, group messaging, and automated communication workflows, making it ideal for those who need to manage high volumes of messages or want to maintain personalized communication at scale.

MessageDesk texting platform for businesses

3. Slack

Slack has become a popular choice for teams and groups looking to use internal communication software for business. It’s a responsive solution for fast-paced working environments, but it has some significant limitations, mainly because it is only a chat app.

Third-Party Integrations to Boost Features

Slack does an exceptional job of third-party integrations, so you can create automations to send an alert to a Slack channel when a crash is observed in software or when an e-commerce store completes a sale, for example. This is in addition to other integrations that boost features such as Google Drive for file sharing.

Multiple Communication Channels

As with other business chat platforms, Slack has realized the power of incorporating other communications channels into its offering. In this case, Slack now provides video and voice calls between employees at a company from within the platform, making it simpler to jump on a call when a topic requires more discussion.

Unfortunately, for more robust video conferencing tools, Slack still requires third-party integrations from the likes of Zoom, Cisco Webex Meetings, or other providers. This means more subscriptions, more costs, and more hassle when navigating and remembering the various single-tool apps.

Staying Secure Under Salesforce?

Slack includes robust security features, but many Slack customers are concerned about how the platform might evolve now that a large company, Salesforce, has taken ownership. Pricing is usually a concern for existing customers when a larger corporation purchases a smaller one.

The Simplicity of Operations

From a simplicity perspective, Slack can be more complicated for teams to learn. It can be confusing what a direct message is and what is in a channel, and the privacy implications around that reality. If something is said in a channel on one day, a person could be added to the channel the next day and then see all that was said previously.

Does Slack Let You Communicate with Customers?

Slack is mainly aimed at internal communications, but it did recently build a solution to chat externally. However, it was panned for the lack of control for receiving messages from unwanted people.

That said, for internal use, Slack does work cross-platform, so it is available to your whole team regardless of whether they’re working on Mac, PC, Android, iOS, or through a web browser.

Slack as a Business Chat App

4. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is one of the newest solutions on the market as an internal communication tool in the business world. It was developed as a response to Slack becoming so popular in the workplace. Since Microsoft already has Microsoft Outlook, they now have multiple products aimed at communication, with Outlook focused on external communication, and Teams focused on internal communication.

Part of a Whole Ecosystem, but Somehow Still Separate

Microsoft Teams is part of an organization’s Microsoft 365 subscriptions, so it’s not nearly as easy to purchase if you are already using Google Workspace or other productivity tools since it is part of a larger solution.

What’s more, since Microsoft Teams is part of a multi-app suite, deployment becomes slightly more cumbersome. Employees have to learn and understand different products and check multiple apps throughout the day. Having too many places to check slows down other work as employees just spend their time keeping their inboxes from overflowing.

Video Conferencing

The other major component of Microsoft Teams, apart from chat, is video conferencing, and it does this very well. In addition, it offers powerful internal and external communication tools, including integrations with the other office apps for presenting work.

That said, it is one of the more confusing video meeting platforms out there with a relatively steep learning curve. In addition, users must have other Microsoft services integrated for some of the more advanced features, which can quickly become very challenging.

A Calendar in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams also offers an integrated calendar, which can be used to organize employees’ time, specifically by planning video meetings on the platform. While different calendars can be combined, it is a challenging process for even the most tech-savvy members of your team.

Microsoft Teams is available cross-platform, so regardless of the types of devices your workplace uses, Teams is available as a native app or Microsoft 365 web edition.

How is Microsoft Teams for Business Chat?

5. Rocket.Chat

Billed as business chat app that’s designed to go beyond team communication, Rocket.Chat packs in plenty of features that make this open-source technology a versatile entry to our list. This means that it’s a great choice for businesses with the ability and will to tailor the app to their needs, particularly where data security is concerned.

Rocket.Chat Inside and Out

One of the core features of Rocket.Chat is that it enables users to connect with external partners and customers regardless of the specific channel they use. This means you can have your fully customized company chat reach out to your partners fully customized chat and enjoy all of the functionality the app provides.

Video Conferencing and More

Rocket.Chat allows for in-chat video conferencing on the go using integrated apps—and of course, third-party app integration doesn’t stop there. Offering unlimited integrations with apps such as Zoom, Google Drive, Salesforce, and Hubspot, you have a world of functionality at your fingertips. Additionally, developers can create apps specifically suited to your business needs.

Rocket.Chat as an IM Business App

6. Webex

Sometimes original is best, sometimes it’s not—and for Webex the jury is still out. Generally considered among the first companies to offer video conferencing and instant messaging directly targeting businesses, the app has now expanded to feature voice calls, meetings, and events in the cloud.

Webex as Trusted App

The Webex IM business app plays host to a boatload of Fortune 500 companies, making it one of the most high-profile instant messaging platforms around. With this is mind, the app has expanded its feature set to interactive webinars for up 100,000 attendees, alongside a streamlined interface for team messaging and file sharing both inside and outside your business.

Webex IM for your business

7. Chanty

Trusted by organizations and companies such as NASA and Nike, is a team communication and collaboration app that helps teams to communicate, collaborate and manage projects more efficiently. It offers features such as instant messaging, task management, file sharing, and video conferencing, as well as advanced Kanban boards and to-do lists.

Chanty with AI chat

Chanty boasts several unique features that set it apart from other team communication and collaboration tools. Among them is the use of uses AI technology to suggest responses, making communication faster and more efficient. In addition, you’ll find unlimited search history where all communication and files are stored and searchable, making it easy to find information and revisit past conversations, as well as customizable workspaces.

Chanty instant messenger for businesses

8. Ryver

Ryver is a team communication and collaboration platform that combines elements of chat, task management, and team email. It is designed to help teams communicate and stay organized in one centralized place. In addition, you’ll find file sharing and storage, customizable workspaces and task boards, and integrations with other tools such as Google Drive, as well as video and audio calls.

Ryver a balanced choice?

Ryver’s combination of chat, task management, and team email gives it an edge over some less complex instant messenger apps, however, it doesn’t really excel at any of these. It may be a good choice for businesses that don’t need support for custom integrations, reliable video and audio conferencing, and limited support for mobile applications.

Ryver IM platform for businesses

9. Ring Central

Formerly a staple of call centers around the world, Ring Central has now branched out into instant messaging. The app allows users to communicate in real-time with other users within their organization and offers features such as group chat, file sharing, and screen sharing. This does, however, rely on the Ring Central ecosystem, meaning its closed off to email communications.

Easy integration for call centers

For call centers and other phone-based companies using the Ring Central cloud-based communication platform, Ring Central IM may be a good option. This means video and voice calling across the app, as well as instant messaging for businesses with file sharing and screen sharing.

Instant messaging for businesses from Ring Central

10. Troop Messenger

With instant messaging, audio and video calls, file sharing, task management, and screen sharing features, Troop Messenger provides a comprehensives platform for teams to collaborate and communicate. It aims to provide a centralized location for team communication and collaboration, making it easier for teams to stay organized and productive.

Is Troop Messenger a good Instant Messenger?

Troop Messenger provides a comprehensive set of features for team communication and collaboration, and its screen sharing feature is particularly useful. However, it may not be the best choice for businesses that require advanced features such as custom integrations or a mobile app with offline access.

Troop Messenger IM platform for businesses

11. Flock

Flock is a team communication and collaboration platform that offers powerful features including chat, video and audio calls, file sharing and storage, customizable workspaces, and integrations with other tools such as Google Drive. Its goal is to keep teams organized and efficient by providing a centralized location for communication.

Is Flock a well-rounded choice?

Flock offers a range of features that are useful for team communication and collaboration, but it does not excel in any one area. It may be a good choice for businesses that do not require reliable video and audio conferencing.

Flock IM platform for businesses

Pros and Cons of Instant Messaging for Business

Before your business dive into the world of chat apps, consider closely the key features outlined as well as some of the overall pros and cons:

Summary

Having the right internal communication app for your business can differentiate between a productive remote workforce and a non-productive one. The right balance to find for your team is a solution that allows for seamless collaboration without becoming a burden.

Some of the effective use of internal communication software for business will come down to culture. An essential tip for all teams to remember is that instant messaging in business should be viewed as asynchronous. If a teammate is focused on a project, they can’t be expected to respond to every instant message as it comes in.