Flock is a collaborative business messaging application, designed to compete with Slack. The app is presented as a fast and reliable means of communication, and is available in a free edition for teams of up to twenty members.
$0
for teams of 1-20 members
Zoho Cliq
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Zoho Chat is a live chat tool, from Zoho Corporation.
$18
per month up to 25 users
Pricing
Flock
Zoho Cliq
Editions & Modules
Starter
$0
for teams of 1-20 members
Pro
$6
per month per user (ideal for teams of 20-100 users)
Many of the features are shared between these three programs but for us, we found the mobile application to be much easier to manage and being that we were using this a lot on the go that was a major selling point for our team and operation.
Flock is very well suited in scenarios where individuals must communicate via chat. It also works great when teams need to communicate via group chat messages. File and document sharing is another area where Flocks works well. Channels are used for discussions on specific topics or organization-wide announcements. Flock may be less appropriate when you use it for voice and video calls. Where.
It is very well suited as a messaging tool, where one needs to communicate quickly to a colleague the status of a particular task or an update to the work. This is especially useful for field work where the field team can report the work done and any additional resources required. We have faced issues when virtual meetings are held for a team of 10+ members with a lot of drop-offs and poor quality of reception (audio & video). While some may be attributed to poor internet connection, we do not face the same issue when using Zoom meetings. This area requires strengthening.
Networked phones are a thing of past now. We don’t have to stop what we are doing to receive phone calls currently because Flock can do that
It is now easy to send messages to many people at the same time, all we need to do is to add all the contants in the chat and select all to send a message
This software has an in-built to-do-list which allows us to assign tasks to different people or users and then supervise each independently
Initial set up can be a little daunting if you aren't a tech-savvy person. For large organizations, this might not matter since you would have a dedicated IT team that will handle it (as we did) but if you are a small business owner looking to set this up yourself, I imagine it would take some trial and error to get working.
We would likely to renew use of Flock for our organization since it meets most of the requirements of team collboration and communication for a small group like us. Most of our Flock users like it's features and use it extensively for day-to-day work. We are quite optimistic about it's future updates.
Zoho Cliq has become an integral part of our daily business. Every single member of our team who has a job involving a computer has an active Zoho Cliq license and uses the tool continuously throughout the day. It cuts down on meetings and allows the team to feel very connected to one-another even though we are distributed geographically.
It is good to give what an app deserves, Flock is very efficient and effective app to manage the all day to day activities and communicate across all team members, create groups, share files, send reminders schedule reminders for each group or persons and share notes.Pin files and search any messages from anyone with advanced filters. It's a great app.
Easy to use Larger File sharing like videos, audios, even zip files Make internal group calls Multiple channel creation sharing development scripts is also easy
It's available 24X7. We have never faced any serious issues with the connectivity. Whenever we faced issues, it has been traced to a browser issue or Windows app issue or a mobile issue.
We've only needed customer support a few times with Flock (mainly concerning app integration and security), and they've always been timely and helpful, which are the only things I truly need from support. The response rate was still rapid, and there's plenty of support available online as well for Flock.
Excellent support. Online training and supporting videos, and resources are more than sufficient to get started. Moreover, their support channel, especially the chat window, is very helpful and provides an instant solution to all our queries. For any complicated issue, they always get back by email with the solution and on occasions even call back.
Implementation is very simple and easy. Create a Zoho account (free or paid), send/ receive an invite, log in, verify your credentials and get started. Admin would have created the channels for you, and you start contributing. The entire process is smooth, and you can get started within minutes. The Admin has to work at the backend, initially, and decide on the permissions for the individual and the team and set up permissions for access to other applications too. This needs to be planned out, tested and implemented.
Flock as mentioned takes the best of all these apps and improves upon them. Flock's UI was exactly what we were looking for and Flock doesn't overcharge small teams for search functional or messaging. It just offers a great product at a great price combined with great support. Their chat ticket system works almost immediately.
Functionality wise Zoho Chat fairs pretty well against the other options. I still use all the other options as I need to be flexible in how I communicate with clients. It is the integration into the ZohoCRM & Cliq that puts Zoho Chat above the others and is why I try to encourage clients to move across to the app
The system works perfectly well. At times, we have faced issues with the desktop application - it doesn't start, or takes time to start, or even logs off on its own. However, the browser as well as the mobile application work perfectly well, and we have never faced issues with them
our business save time and improve communication. We noticed a 20% faster response time to customer issues because team members can communicate instantly.
reduced our internal email clutter, saving about 10 hours a week for staff who used to spend time sorting through emails.
