A colleague complained this morning that they had difficulty keeping in touch with other companies and their contractors due to the proliferation of competing chat services. While the many options now available can serve a wide variety of needs, the lack of consistency and connectivity between them can be a roadblock when you just need to get things done.

The teams that I’m on use a variety of tools to manage internal and external communication. We use Trello for general project management, Dropbox for file storage, Google Drive for document editing and storage, and Google Hangouts for most of our team chatting.

While this isn’t a post on the pros and cons of specific tools or a guide on what to use, keeping on top of things is important. Take it from someone who still hasn’t gotten the hang of using a CRM to manage existing and potential clients. Or someone who understands that there isn’t as much search-ability or asynchronicity with Google Hangouts, but takes advantage of the flexibility and integration that it offers*.

What is important is that everyone is on the same page as to what is being used, and is properly setup and knowledgeable of their tools. At a previous job we used Basecamp for client communications and project management. If a client emailed us a file or request, we would copy it into Basecamp, then respond back to them with the Basecamp link and a reminder to use that in the future. This was for the first two times this happened. Future email requests would be ignored entirely.

If you bring new members onto your team, it’s your responsibility to get them up to speed with how you work. Don’t let one team member use Skype, while another is on Slack and yet another only texts or emails. Have systems in place for things that are important, and distribute those tools and processes equally to everyone that you work with. Need to share large files with your coworkers? Get Dropbox for business and pay for everyone’s accounts. These are business expenses, and should be treated as such. The cost of lost opportunity and wasted time is often much higher in the long-term than a recurring monthly fee.

Whatever tools you choose to use, consider not just how it works for you but how it works for your contractors/employees/team/clients. Transparency and openness is for more than just your code – it’s for your communication too.

*I recently had a client who first couldn’t find the link to the Hangout chat right in the calendar invite email that they accepted, then couldn’t load the page. They asked me via email to use a “real world” tool, like Webex. Guess stalwarts really can keep making money purely through complacency.

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