Those with a significant portion of their workforce on the frontlines — hospitality, retail, and transport — know the unique challenge that comes with ensuring communications reach their employees.
A mobile-focused internal employee communications app is often a great solution to the problem of engaging those employees seamlessly.
But among the many frontline-focused solutions, which one is right for you?
Today we’ll compare Beekeeper vs. Beekeeper to see which one is a fit for your needs.
Beekeeper vs. Blink — quick facts
Both Blink and Beekeeper are employee communication apps highly focused on frontline workers. Their difference lies in their specialities.
Beekeeper specifically targets workers in the hospitality industry. Blink serves a broader range of frontline workers, with an emphasis on transport and healthcare.
In addition, Beekeeper is designed with primarily frontline companies in mind, as they offer a shift scheduling feature as a prominent communication tool within the app.
Those with a mixed workforce of desk-base and mobile employees may find that it “Works best with smartphones; it is not as good on computers.”
How they’re similar
Comparing Beekeeper vs. Blink, there are a few notable similarities:
Mobile content
Both Blink and Beekeeper have optimized their employee experience apps for mobile, with support for both Android and iPhone. Communications and updates are available on a scrolling feed or stream, similar to any other social mobile app.
Frontline focus
Blink and Beekeeper’s software are both mobile-first, designed to provide full functionality and access from just a phone.
Not only are the UI elements in line with consumer mobile apps, but the features included are carefully designed to be more useful to the needs of frontline workers.
Fast implementation
Blink and the Beekeeper app are both designed for ease of use straight out of the box.
Some internal communication platforms require extensive onboarding for employees to understand how to use them. Or they require a lot of IT manpower to make them work for your team. Not so with these apps.
Single Sign-on
Blink and the Beekeeper software both integrate with other existing software through a secure, simple process known as Single Sign-On.
How they’re different
Although both apps aim for the same purpose, their execution differs in several areas.
Social feed
In Blink’s app, the primary source of up-to-date messages, photos, and notifications is called the Feed.
That is a personalized, constantly updated collection of photos, videos, updates, and stories. Users can filter their feeds by teams for an even more specific view.
Beekeeper breaks up their feed into multiple topic-based ‘streams.’ This helps make the information more manageable but adds a layer of effort for the user since there is no aggregated view.
Beekeeper users also say they want to “Improve some functionalities to allow for more personalization, such as more flexibility in choosing streams you want to have or not.”
In comparison, Blink’s feed is more intuitive to use.
CMS
The Blink Hub is an end-to-end content management system that brings the policies, systems, and files your people rely on together on one dashboard.
Employees can find anything they need with the universal search function and save time by previewing the content before opening it.
There is no equivalent to this intranet software feature in Beekeeper, which is one of the reasons why it’s more optimized for entirely mobile teams.
If most of your workforce never needs to upload and manage documents, removing this feature streamlines the employee experience. Users can share basic documents like PDFs, but they are not easily searchable, and the layout options are limited.
Schedules
Beekeeper has a well-built schedule function right in the app. Workers can check when they’re expected and submit time-off requests, and the admins can make sure all the necessary functions are covered.
Blink can serve a similar schedule function, but it requires the use of an additional pre-built app add-on and is not a standard feature.
Automation
While Blink focuses on fostering more authentic real-time connections, Beekeeper is slightly more focused on operational efficiency.
That is evident in Beekeeper’s numerous automated features. It offers onboarding workflows when users first join the app and a chatbot that can answer employees' questions about their benefits and the products.
Organizations can create custom checklists and workflows for frontline employees to use in the app to complete tasks relating to their roles.
Digital signage
Although Blink and Beekeeper are designed to reach employees just about anywhere — only Beekeeper has a feature that can reach employees without phones.
The Beekeeper software allows admins to upload slideshows and push important messages through digital signage in break rooms to reach as many employees as possible. That gives new meaning to the idea of a digital workplace.
Chat function
Blink’s chat is an instant messenger with tons of useful collaboration features.
Users can share documents, save messages, archive chats, search their conversations, and even start a video call from the app. However your team wants to use the app, it can be customized.
In one on one situations, Beekeeper’s chat is also well-rounded. However, its collaboration in group settings does not offer chat deletion, message forwarding, or saving messages.
Beekeeper user reviews say they don’t like that they “Can’t delete old chats or polls.” One advantage over Blink is the in-line translation feature that is especially useful for teams who need to communicate across language barriers.
Integrations
Although both apps offer integrations with other services, Blink integrates directly in the app. Those integrations are brought into the Hub, so the apps are accessible within Blink — without ever having to leave the app or go to the cloud.
Hundreds of apps are available, from Salesforce and Microsoft 365 to niche industry tools.
Beekeeper also offers a wide range of integrations, but they rely on other cloud storage services like Zapier and Google.
That may complicate security assurance for some companies. Users say the Beekeeper is “Focused on communication with a community but more difficult to combine with more functionalities which leads to use of more than one application.”
Both platforms offer custom development integrations with API.
Text formatting tools
Designed to make it as easy as possible to create engaging content intuitively, Blink’s rich feed editor lets you change fonts, headings, add emojis, and embed rich media like video, audio, and images.
Beekeeper offers no dynamic text editing to emphasize or draw attention to new and old posts. Users say, “The desktop version could have some more editing tools for posts (emojis, bold text, picture resize).”
Beekeeper vs. Blink: Systems and pricing
While many employee apps, including Beekeeper, offer varying levels of features, Blink is an all-in-one solution that gives you access to all of its tools right out of the box.
For that reason, Blink sets pricing tiers based on organization size:
- Essential: $3.40 per person, per month
- Business: Price on application
- Enterprise: Price on application
- Enterprise Plus: Price on application
Beekeeper bases its pricing model on the features used:
- Standard
- Professional
- Enterprise
Final thoughts: Beekeeper vs. Blink — which should you use in 2023?
If your workforce is primarily on the frontlines, especially in the hospitality industry, and your goal is to make sure they receive vital information and improve your overall operational efficiency, then the Beekeeper app or one like it is probably a good choice for you.
However, if you have a combination of frontline and desk-based workers whose primary goal is to improve employee engagement and efficiency, Blink is the better choice for you.
If you’re still not sure, try out a free demo of Blink to see how our powerful app can transform your organization’s internal communications.
