Microsoft Teams might be a solid internal communications option for your office-based workers. For best use, however, Teams assumes all of your employees have a Outlook email address pre-enrollment - which isn’t ideal for logistics, transport, retail, hospitality, healthcare or any other type of business where workforces aren’t desk-based. Whilst you can enroll without Outlook, the process isn’t easy.
Blink can be installed on all smartphones regardless of operating system, and doesn’t require an existing work email for employees to use it. That’s why Blink is the top alternative to Microsoft Teams for non office-based workforces - it can be used just as effectively by on-the-ground teams as by your office workers.
Whilst Microsoft Teams is an effective peer-to-peer communications tool, it’s difficult to configure as a way to deliver key messages company-wide. There is no specific facility for sending out corporate news, for example, and no intuitive way to send out essential updates to the entire company (unless you create an ‘all company’ team, at which point everyone’s notifications will go wild).
Microsoft Teams competitor Blink offers both instant employee messaging and specifically-designed, robust company communications features so that you can reach your workforce instantly. A social media-style company feed, targeted push notifications and the ‘mandatory read’ feature all combine to create an effective tool that HR and People Teams can use to share essential updates with employees, wherever they are.
Blink’s ‘all in one’ approach to internal communications means that your employees only have to install one app on their device. Once it’s installed, your employees can access to a full range of internal communications features without having to leave the app environment or download more apps - a significant boost to employee engagement and buy-in, especially if you’re asking your workforce to use their personal devices to access Blink.
This makes Blink one of the most flexible Microsoft Teams competitors out there. To interact with a third-party system, users need to leave the Teams environment - embedding forms or workflow into the native environment is difficult, and you’ll need to use more Microsoft apps to do it.
Microsoft Teams’ reputation for resolving support tickets is patchy, at best. Support tickets can take a long time to get escalated to the right team - and are often closed before they get there. If they make it to the Microsoft Teams support team, be prepared for a wait whilst they are resolved. Known issues can sometimes take upwards of a year to be resolved to customers’ satisfaction.
As a busy internal communications team, the last thing you need is technical issues in your major communications channels going unfixed for months, and you probably don’t want to waste precious hours chasing up unanswered support tickets either. If you’re looking for a more reliable support offering, Blink is a great alternative to Microsoft Teams - at a minimum, we guarantee responsive 12/7 support with speedy recognition and resolution of support tickets a key priority.
Blink is one of the best value Microsoft Teams competitors out there. Our plans start at just $3.40 (£2.65) per user, per month. For this, you get access to a full range of internal communications features, including a mobile-optimized employee intranet, unlimited feed posts, chats and Hub storage, workforce analytics, API access and an employee feedback micro-app.
A basic Microsoft Teams plan is free, but in order to gain access to any features that take it beyond an employee-to-employee communications app, you’ll need to pay for an Office 365 plan. These start at $5.00 per user per month, increasing to $20.00 per user per month depending on the tier you opt for. This is generally good value if you need access to everything else Office 365 offers, but if you only need internal communications features you’ll be paying for extended functionality that you’re not interested in.
Blink gives your workforce immediate access to key reference documents such as manuals, employee handbooks, operating instructions and health and safety guidelines through unlimited cloud document storage. Not having to waste time searching for the right paperwork gives busy employees valuable minutes of their day back
This makes Blink an excellent Microsoft Teams alternative because Teams restricts content owners to file sharing rather than providing designated storage areas. Coupled with a difficult-to-use search function and at-times confusing navigation, this makes it difficult for employees to refer back to documents shared with them, particularly if they were shared with them a while back.
Microsoft Teams’ analytics features are mostly limited to usage-based metrics, partly because of its focus as an employee-to-employee communications app, rather than anything more extensive. Because Blink is a more comprehensive alternative to Microsoft Teams, you can access a greater range of workforce analytics metrics to make sure your key messages are hitting home.
You can measure employee engagement with your company feed and posts alongside usage, whilst extended content analytics features help content owners ensure their key messages are getting to everyone that needs to see them.
If you’re looking for an employee communications app that you can brand as your own and customize to your specifications, Microsoft Teams isn’t your best bet. Configuration options are limited, and whilst customization isn’t impossible, it requires coding and the use of awkward templates. Consider Blink as an alternative to Microsoft Teams if you’re looking for an easily configurable, fully-branded in-app experience for your employees without having to wrangle with code-based templates.