Chatter: How to Make the Most of this Powerful and Free Enterprise Level Tool
Chatter comes completely free with Salesforce but do not underestimate it’s power and usefulness just because it is free!
So what is Chatter? Well Chatter is an enterprise application, built into the Salesforce platform, that provides businesses with an easy to use collaboration tool to make communication and teamwork between colleagues, partners and customers very simple.
This powerful software solution can have a very positive impact on workplace collaboration, efficiency and communication and is one of the best free enterprise solutions out there.
It today’s post, we’ll be looking at how to effectively use this powerful piece of software to benefit your business.
- Understand and Explain
Your business can use Chatter to replace internal email, share important or confidential files, discuss new ideas with your team, and create, update and approve a variety of business processes such as sales, orders, reports and support tickets.
When you fully understand what’s on offer and how to get the most out of Chatter, you’ll be able to explain to your team how Chatter benefits their roles and makes their work easier. Like any new application, the best way to get to understand all that Chatter has to offer is to spend some time familiarising yourself with the tool and learn how best to apply its features.
- Build Your Profile
For larger organisations, one key element to effective use of Chatter is well-developed user profiles: your Chatter profile acts as a sort of digital business card, providing people with quick and easily digestible information about your role in the business and its services.
Start by uploading a recent picture of yourself, one that clearly shows your face and is appropriate for the platform. Fill out the bio with detailed info about your education, job history, skills and interests, and remember to include links to any relevant external sites e.g. social media accounts, blogs etc.
Keep in mind that Chatter is an enterprise tool and employees should only include personal information that is appropriate in a professional setting.
- Start Following
The Chatter interface is very similar to those of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, in that you can follow colleagues, topics, objects, files and more, and set up and join groups.
Following topics, Salesforce objects (such as Opportunities or Leads), files etc. notifies you if any changes have been made to the object. It keeps you updated and abreast of any new developments via simple notifications. So you know what is going on with what is of interest to you in your business.
Chatter groups are designed to facilitate communication, organisation and discussion. They’re helpful tools that greatly speed up the collaboration process, and each group features its own specific feed. Groups can be set to private or public and it’s recommended you set up a new group for each individual project.
- Thought Leaders and Training
Chatter is a great platform to use for educational purposes. We advise picking a few members of your business to act as thought leaders and use Chatter to disseminate useful and important information e.g. have the company director post company announcements.
As Chatter usage becomes more common within your business, the appointed thought leaders can begin to share educational material related to business processes in addition to best business practices, sales techniques and more.
The sharing of valuable and important information will help your workforce view Chatter as both a tool for communication and learning. Use the groups feature to organise formal and informal training sessions between different departments and deliver necessary training resources via documents or videos.
- Use, Use, Use
Adopting Chatter in your business will improve communication and collaboration amongst your workforce, but only if the software is used on a daily basis by all employees.
Take a top-down approach and get all high-level employees on board and using Chatter to naturally encourage others to use it, and remember to explain in detail to all employees why you’re introducing this software and how it will benefit their jobs.
It may take a little while for everyone to get up to speed with Chatter and its features, but they will soon find it to be a valuable asset and a highly effective communication and collaboration tool.
If you wish to find out more about this amazing free tool then Contact Us and we’d be delighted to help.
