Google Chat vs. Skype (discontinued) vs. Zoom Workplace

It is a easy and quick way to chat and send instant message using the Google account, even send files, emojis, create groups. I have used it to communicate even with external people with a personal gmail account and is great to stay in touch with all around. I recommend it for anyone who wants to stay communicated using a google account.

Incentivized

Having interacted with a new replacement tool, Microsoft Teams, it is challenging to recommend Skype, as it lacks some essential features, such as being less equipped with the latest updates, and it is not platform-independent, causing issues on PCs and phones, as well as during calls that might hinder work.

Incentivized

Zoom Workplace is ideal for many businesses, more so because it saves money by uniting different functionalities into one app - meetings, messaging, phone, and scheduling. The tool keeps teams connected thanks to the amazing collaboration and communication features. In addition, Zoom Workplace is helpful for businesses with a hybrid team, thanks to its effortless connections.

Incentivized

• When discussing about a specific project, I can quickly share google docs or sheets within the chat which helps my team to view the document in real time and they do not have to leave the conversation.
• Scheduling a meeting with someone is very easy on Google Chat.
• We have remote team members in different time zones and instead of waiting for emails we use Google Chat to quickly discuss anything.

Incentivized

• The instant chat function is great. Very straightforward, easy to use, easy to learn, no technical issues.
• Video calls are pretty easy also, user friendly and a mostly stable connection with no issues.
• Voice calls are easy also, eliminates the need for an external landline or the need to use your cell phone. Clear connections, not really any dropped calls.

Incentivized

• It offers amazing unified collaboration features, including Zoom whiteboard, Zoom team chat, and integrated mail and calendar.
• Zoom is a great meeting solution, with features like smart recording, breakout rooms, and personalized video and audio, making it a functional business meeting tool.
• It is equipped with amazing AI features that help summarize meetings, generate content, and provide quick catch-up, allowing one to ask AI questions without interrupting meetings.

Incentivized

• Google Hangouts Chat has a room for improvement in customizing the themes background.The themes are outdated and hard to change if you don't know the right key to change it.
• It could be more user friendly if there will be no hidden features. Formatting messages is very likely to use and fun.
• With conversations going on about everything all the time, it's easy to get pulled into far too many discussions but sometimes its hard to mention names because it shows many result even the users are not included on the chat room.

Incentivized

• Skype is a RESOURCE hog. People who have limited bandwidth will have poor call quality.
• It is hard to figure out how to use emojis and upload images in the chat.
• The background images do not fool anybody....it is clearly not your real background.

Incentivized

• I don't think there is any malfunction in their solution; it's extremely convenient to use, be it creating a meeting invite, adding people, sending any extra stuff to them. It's quick, and this is the only tool that works seamlessly even on Androids.

Incentivized

The updates, support, general reviews on Google Chat are great everywhere. The development of the features is ongoing and this adds a great value to Google as a big company in the market. Other applications are limiting communication while Google Chat is allowing communication to grow. It is very easy to use it and teach others how to use Google Chat.

I have given this rating as this need to give more than that as it's very helpful for us and makes our work more efficient and fast.

We're sticking with Zoom for the foreseeable future--given its compelling feature set, ease of use, and advanced technology, there's just no other competition to be excited about. Plus it's a Gartner-recognized industry leader, so it's a rather easy choice.

As stated from the starting we found this application is well suited for a small audience and a group of people across the organization can be communicated easily with no additional hectic of doing any setup. When you have a Gmail account ready then you can easily access google chat and continue the communication. This tool is simple,secure and robust helping the global leading partner for their internal precise communication and handling the tasks in a great way

Incentivized

Skype is not as good as Facetime in terms of ease to glance at it and figure out how it works. I think that's a result of Skype trying to be too many things at once. A lot of the menu and UI could be streamlined, and I would jettison some of the additional functions that have been tacked on over the years to simplify. That being said, while some options are slightly hard to find, they all work flawlessly once found.

Incentivized

Zoom is made for the non tech office. It has features that can be made to do what you need to run things on a day to day basis. Immediately we we able to get meetings going with remote employees. The ability to be able to add smartphone connected people was a big plus. Zoom met our needs at the time.

There have been less than a handful of outages during our two years with Zoom, and whenever there was one, an email informing us of the outage went out immediately, and they had the issue resolved shortly thereafter.

Zoom has among the best performance of any video conference platform, as I've mentioned several times. Besides that, their Chat platform works great, and their back end always runs smooth. It's unfortunate that reporting can now only be done by one month at a time, but nonetheless, it only takes a second to run any kind of Zoom report, whether it's an attendee report, Poll results, a user report, a list of meetings from the past month, etc.

I have not needed to contact the support folks for Google Hangouts Chat, so I can't speak to this with any accuracy. The online instructions are fairly clearly written, so it is fairly intuitive to start with. I did not feel the need to use the support people anyway.

Incentivized

I am not aware of the current support level for Skype for business, as I have never used even though I have the product. However, the support for Skype's personal paid users is not where it could be. Users who pay for Skype features do not have a clear path to reach out to support. So, rating 6, can be better as soon as I need to use Skype for business support and get a good experience. I will say that I will renew Skype for Business subscription, which is a significant inconsistency on my end. The explanation is that Skype for Business comes bundled with Office for Business, with no additional cost, so why not.

Incentivized

Because I got a response right away, and was assigned one specific individual to work with me from the beginning to the resolution. I had an actual email address and direct contact with this person without having to start over and over every time I contacted Zoom - this singular individual remained attentive and was well informed on the subject matter and quite able to resolve my needs.

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It can be used on the phone via mobile application as well as on the desktop by logging in to the website. Easily installed and ready to use.

Incentivized

If you receive any pushback from higher ups, point to any of the various positive reviews like this one. Or show Zoom's excellent Gartner report, or articles describing Zoom's partnership with Sequoia capital. It's not difficult to show how Zoom is a trustworthy industry leader with best-in-class technology.

Slack has a few more features than Google Chat. Slack, for a long time, had thread chats that grouped a thread of thoughts together, making the main chat group space a lot less cluttered. A while back, Google Chat implemented a similar thing in a different but similar way, making the group less crowded. They are catching up.

Incentivized

We use Skype in combination with Grasshopper. While Grasshopper acts as a routing toll free number with extensions, if we are making calls directly, we do it through Skype. Skype's desktop and mobile apps are easier to use, and provide unlimited local calls at a flat, affordable rate. Allowing our team to use their existing mobile or desktop devices without additional hardware for business office phone calls is important, and Skype makes that possible

Incentivized

Teams do not stack up to Zoom at all. My clients use Teamas because it is a corporate policy, and they use it most of the time between employees of the same company. It makes sense for this, NOT for me. Every time a Teams meeting is launched, since I am not part of this company, the meeting is laborious, the interface is not as nice as Zoom's, sharing documents is more difficult, etc., etc. Zoom is superior to Teams in every way!!!

Incentivized

The billing and price model is really fair for so many functions that they offer, our remote work requires each of the features that Zoom offers, so accepting payment for a tool like this is the least we can do. I like that billing arrives on time and that they offer opportunities and payment times.

Because the Basic licenses are completely free, and because it's very easy to configure and install Zoom, and because anyone can join Zoom from a link without needing an account, scaling is a Breeze. There are absolutely no roadblocks. My company keeps adding more Zoom Pro license every week since it's so in demand. We were able to convert users from several different platforms onto Zoom with no trouble at all.

The service provided is up to date, as discussed before buying.

Zoom is perfect for our business. We use it to video chat with prospective clients. The name recognition alone gives us credibility and it is very easy to screen share and send content out.

• In my work it allows us to report troubles that may cost loss of investment thru Google Hangouts Chat we were able to communicate on how to fix it.
• I hope we can make it on our own choice of colors to heightened workers vibe
• It is connected to your email

Incentivized

• Skype made keeping in touch with an advisor in Mexico very easy. The initiative there resulted in 5 new partnerships.
• Skype has helped me with account management for at least 3 customers in LATAM--usually it's a fast way to answer a question about a support renewal.
• For about 9 months Skype helped me stay in touch with a colleague in Prague. We would meet once a week to go over sales activities.

Incentivized

• We are still early in our adoption of Zoom Workplace for business, so we don't really have any data to show cost savings.
• The ability to take a call summary or meeting summary and add it to our practice management system have been remarkable. It's a quick copy/paste and it's in the system. Prior to this, we would have to scan in notes and save them into the system, if it even got that far. Mostly, attorneys would be searching through legal pads for the notes of a previous meeting or phone call.

Incentivized