Item: Google Hangouts (Classic)
Rating: 7
Author: Ignacio Cruz

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We were using Google Hangouts across all the organization. The idea was to communicate with our teammates easily with questions and doubts that didn't have to be delivered by mail. It was intended to be for more casual conversation and maybe some questions that just required a confirmation. Discussions and important topics were done within mail or meetings.

Pros and Cons

Casual chatting
Promoting conversation between teammates
Images, gifs and emojis.

Group chat
Topic conversation
Search for some message

Return on Investment

Messaging without interruptions
Have to use mail or meetings when needing to address a big group
Fluent conversation with teammates

Alternatives Considered

Slack

Slack is much better than Google Hangouts since it lets you have group conversations, having threads within a same conversation and integrating with lots of apps for making the work more fluent. Actually I would recommend trying Google chat that has some features that are similar to Slack but is free of use (and it lets you search for old messages).

Other Software Used

Freshsales CRM, Slack, Freshchat, Freshdesk, Facebook for Business

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Hangouts is well suited when you are using the Google suits platform in all the organization. This way you can connect all your employees in one platform so that they can communicate easily.
The problem is that it does not work well when you are trying to talk with a big group about a specific topic. The Google chat application is good for this, and replaced the whole chat for the company.

Replacing Hangouts with Google chat

Overall Satisfaction with Google Hangouts