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Technology: Tools from ZOHO on Remote Working

By Eileen Keane, Sales Director, Monread CRM

We have all had to adapt in the last couple of weeks and working from home has become the default for all companies big and small. Our office is where we are, and work goes on. For many, all you need is a device, broadband and access to the information, to do the job. I was someone who already worked remotely most of the time, the only change for me is that my nice quiet private work domain has turned into a hectic co-working space shared with my husband and four children! I can’t help you with your domestic working arrangements, but I can tell you about some apps available to help you and your team to maximise effectiveness when working remotely. Read on, you may never go back to the office!

Zoho Corporation was one of the first companies to respond to the impact of Covid-19 on business. Not surprising really as Zoho is focused on supporting SMES, with its Zoho One suite of enterprise level applications covering everything from CRM, Marketing, Customer Service, Finance etc., at an affordable price. This time they bundled together a toolkit of 11 Enterprise apps, called it Zoho Remotely and opened it up to the world for free.

Zoho Remotely helps teams embrace remote work and is Free until July 2020, when hopefully this crisis will have abated.

Communication

For remote workers the biggest challenge is communication, you can no longer pass by a colleague’s desk or get an update over a coffee. My favourite app at the moment is Cliq which provides an array of communication options – chat, audio or video- allowing you to discuss important matters with your team or customers

Group communications, whether business meetings or remote training, can be achieved through Zoho Meeting or Zoho ShowTime. These advanced web conferencing and training tools make it possible to engage virtually and the next best thing to being there in person.

Collaboration

Zoho WorkDrive allows you to store and share all your company files. So, whether you are working together on a document or a project, this will come in handy. For project management, if you follow the waterfall method, try Zoho Projects or if you use agile project management, then Sprints is your best bet.

Remote Support & Assistance

With the current restrictions field service engineers are not able to call to a customer’s site to solve the problem so it all has to done from afar.

Zoho Assist is a cloud-based remote support and access app that helps you troubleshoot and correct an issue through web-based, on demand support sessions

Zoho Lens uses the customer’s phone camera to show the technician the conditions on site, then the technician is able to annotate and highlight the video stream so the customer can see what they need to fix.

Productivity

Last, but by no means least, you have your productivity apps which allows you to create and collaborate on content no matter where you are.

Zoho Writer is a powerful word processing app, Zoho Sheet takes care of your shared spreadsheet needs and finally Zoho Show an easy to use presentation tool allowing multiple people to work on the same slides at the same time.

ISME members that need help with remote work and putting the right tools in place, please reach out to Monread CRM, we are here to help.