Working in real estate teams, no matter how big or small requires solid communication between team members and the teams themselves. Sales needs to talk to lead gen. Marketing needs to talk to graphic design. HR needs to talk to everyone. All of this requires a good communication app.
A cruel irony of the 21st-century workplace is that while every website and app appear to have communication functions built in – they’re typically incomplete solutions. Communications is a secondary function of most productivity apps and they’re typical of limited use (think Gmail chat) to larger groups.
What your team needs is a dedicated communication platform to ensure that all of your team(s) are on the same page. Any of these 9 communication apps might help you find the cohesion you and your team(s) are looking for!
Top Communication Apps For Real Estate Teams
HipChat
One of the original team chat apps, HipChat has reduced its interface and function for optimal load speed. It’s versatile, fast, easy to use and effective – everything you want from a communications app.
Pricing:
•Free HipChat Basic for unlimited users (core chat and 25k message history)
•$2/month per user to upgrade to HipChat Plus (video chat, screen sharing, unlimited file sharing and message history)
Flock
Featuring a classic ‘chat forum’ layout, Flock is a communication app great for ongoing conversations because the comments feature the comment being replied to directly underneath. It’s very easy to follow as a participant or an observer.
Pricing:
•Free for unlimited users and 10k message history
•$3/month per user on Pro plan (unlimited messages, history and integrations)
Ryver
A nice clean UI/UX with the ability to add details to conversations, Ryver is a great communication app if your team does lots of brainstorming and you have a lot of ideas floating around. Allows you to take individual idea threads and build an editable and searchable post out of them.
Also, you can add non-team members to chats if you use part-time contractors for functions like communications and social media.
Pricing:
•Free for unlimited users and and chats + 10 integrations
•Plans to introduce Ryver Task, a paid upgrade
Slack
Slack is THE current benchmark of communication apps. The reason? It does everything you need it to do and if it doesn’t, there are over 750 apps you can connect to it in order to get the functions you need. It’s also extremely easy to use via the iOS and Android mobile apps, which makes team buy-in significantly quicker and easier.
Even better, if you’re a member of multiple teams, this communication app will support all of them in the same login session. The ability to create team semi-private sub-threads is great for keeping the general thread less cluttered.
Pricing:
•Free for unlimited users, user-to-user calls and 10k message history
•From $8/month per user on Standard plan for unlimited history, screen sharing and team video calls
Cisco Spark
Spark has a nice clean UI/UX from one of the most established names on this list with all of the basic messaging functionality. But wait, there’s more!
If you have a lot of visual learners on your team, the Whiteboard function lets you make quick sketches to convey intricate ideas. You’d be amazed how handy this function is! One of the pricier communication apps, it’s also one of the more versatile ones – especially if design is a big part of your team.
Pricing:
•Free unlimited team messaging + 10 integrations
•$12/month Plus plan for unlimited integrations, admin controls, Cisco conferencing tools connections + support
Google Hangouts Chat
Although Google Hangouts Chat has not officially launched, the ability to have a digital assistant fetch Google Drive files and schedule meetings to your Google Calendar will undoubtedly create value if your team relies on Google tools like Drive and Docs. When Google rolls out this communication app, you know it will be worth a look.
Pricing:
•TBA
Basecamp 3
A great intro communication app for smaller teams with members fulfilling multiple roles. Basecamp is both an internal communications tool and outward communications tool. A great way to share client information between team members and to build up team comms.
Also, if you loved Campfire, all of the previous functionalities were rolled into Basecamp 3 as Campfire was slowly phased out. You can still use Campfire but the platform is no longer fully supported.
Pricing:
•Free for students and teachers
•$99/month (or $1,000 annually) for unlimited users and projects
Redbooth
While actually a task-tracker, its built-in chat function is a great way to coordinate tasks among team members and discuss the tasks in-window. It’s an easy to use, interactive and highly functional communication app.
Current large companies using Redbooth include Spotify, Warner Brothers, Nvidia, Volkswagen, eBay and Iberia.
Pricing:
- Priced at $5 per user per month when billed annually. This includes unlimited projects, group and one-to-one chat. Also includes 20 hours of HD video calls, online support, mobile apps and integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox and Evernote.
- The Business plan for company-wide productivity is priced at $15 per user per month billed annually. Includes 20 users and above with more features such as advanced reporting, unlimited video calls, more integrations and others.
- The Private Cloud plan is for highly regulated industries for 20 users and above with more secured features.
Asana
Like Redbooth, Asana isactually a task-tracker. But the ability to have a comment thread on each assigned task is HUGE if you have multiple projects across multiple sub-teams.
The iOS and Android apps are very well laid out and easy to use. This makes editing tasks and responding to messages on the go about easy for a team communications platform. Definitely one of the best all-around communication apps available.
Pricing:
•Free for small teams just starting out
•Asana Premium costs $9.99 per user per month when billed annually and $11.99 per user per month when billed monthly. Plans of 15 or fewer qualify for a small team discount, so the price per user per month is $6.25 when billed annually and $7.50 when billed monthly.