Whether your work day begins in an office, at home, or somewhere in between, there’s a good chance your routine includes a set of tasks like these:
- Open your calendar app to review the day’s agenda
- Sign in to your email
- Check your chat or messaging apps
- Log in to your CRM or project management tools
- Chat with team members
- Attend a meeting (in-person or virtually)
- Brainstorm or problem-solve for the next great idea
While it sounds simple enough, this approach can quickly lead to the dreaded toggle tax if you’re spending more time switching between myriad browser tabs and less time actually working. But what if there was an easier way? What if you could actually be more productive in one place, on one platform?
With Zoom, it’s easy to connect, collaborate, and get things done with our all-in-one collaboration platform. Keep reading to see how some of our latest hybrid work features can simplify your daily routine and generate greater productivity.
What are 12 Zoom platform features you should be using?
- Zoom Calendar
- Zoom Mail
- Zoom Team Chat
- Smart gallery
- Zoom Whiteboard
- Continuous meeting chat
- Meeting summaries and chat compose with Zoom IQ
- Zoom Huddles
- Zoom Workspace Reservations
- Zoom Scheduler
- Zoom IQ for Sales
- Zoom Contact Center
Say hello to your new morning ritual
If you’re like most of us then you probably can’t get too far into your day without hopping online to open your daily schedule and read through emails. But if your email and calendar are in separate windows, it’s easy to miss an important event. Zoom Calendar and Zoom Mail are built directly into the Zoom desktop and mobile apps so you can glance at your calendar and check email from the same app. In fact, your calendar view can always be visible, no matter if you’re on the phone, chatting with coworkers, drawing on a whiteboard, or launching a new meeting — so you never miss an event.
With your mail and calendar up to date, head over to Team Chat to catch up on your favorite chat threads and channels since you last signed in. Whether organized by team name, individual conversations, current projects, or your favorite sports team, your Team Chat channels are built right into the Zoom app.
Not only do we recommend Team Chat for, well, chatting, but it’s most likely where you’ll spend the bulk of your day. More than just an instant message tool, Team Chat is a collaboration destination to share files (and gifs), and access business apps like Asana, Jira, and Salesforce. You can record video and audio messages, and communicate status updates for projects. And, if your chat goes a little longer than you’d prefer, don’t be afraid to launch a Zoom Meeting or Zoom Phone call directly from the chat window itself to continue the conversation without as much typing.
Create a more equitable hybrid work environment
Ready for your first meeting of the day? Here’s where having constant visibility into your calendar becomes especially handy. Even with pop-up notifications, it can still be hard to find the calendar tab amid multiple browser windows. But inside the Zoom app, you can join your next event from the calendar sidebar with one click, check out the meeting agenda and files, and see who’s already joined.
Once you’re in a Zoom Meeting, you may feel left out if your peers are together in the company conference room. With Zoom Rooms enabled, you can still enjoy an engaging virtual conference room experience that blurs the lines between in-person and remote attendees.
Just launch the Zoom Rooms smart gallery feature to zoom in on participants and separate them into individual video tiles for better interaction. This way, you’ll feel like everyone is on the same playing field. And coming soon to public beta, the intelligent director feature can help find the best angles of in-person participants so you can enjoy a high-quality meeting experience without staring at the back of someone’s head.
Maximize your meeting productivity
As your meeting progresses and ideas begin to flow, don’t lose track of all your hard work. Pop open a Zoom Whiteboard right inside your Zoom Meeting or Zoom app to capture great ideas in a dedicated collaboration space. Need input from others? Share your whiteboard to a Team Chat channel to access it at a moment’s notice.
Even better, Team Chat will generate a unique chat channel for your Zoom Meetings with the continuous meeting chat feature to save your interactions. Now you can share information before, during, and after the call in a chat thread dedicated solely to your meeting. Miss out on a funny gif? Can’t remember everyone who attended? With continuous chat, your Zoom Meetings chat and details are preserved for easy reference after every call so that collaboration can continue even after your meeting ends.
Perhaps you need to reference a meeting but either couldn’t attend or only need to review part of the conversation. This makes our smart companion, Zoom IQ, your new best friend. Using smart meetings recording with Zoom IQ*, you can replay the recording in segmented chapters to access specific moments, meeting highlights, or notable action items.
Or, if you missed the meeting altogether and need a summarized recap without rewatching, the meeting summaries with Zoom IQ feature (free trial coming soon) will generate a summary of the meeting and capture next steps for you to share with others via email, Team Chat, or Zoom Calendar.
After your meeting, try out the chat compose with Zoom IQ feature (free trial coming soon) to crank out fast replies or next steps. Using generative AI, our smart compose tool helps you draft messages based on Team Chat conversations so you can craft just the right message to work more efficiently.
Simpler ways to make face-to-face connections
Whether you love or hate hybrid work, most of us miss talking in the break room or having pop-up cubicle conversations after lunch. If you find yourself craving extra social opportunities with coworkers, just create your own Zoom Huddles. Launch a huddle with a single click and hop into a video-enabled, public virtual workspace for a quick chat with your peers. Huddles can be categorized by themes, teams, and topics, and provide an immersive experience that promotes the same employee engagement found in spontaneous conversations.
For the days when you go into an office, there’s an easy way to make sure you don’t miss out on your favorite coworking spot. Zoom Workspace Reservation lets you search and reserve a workspace before entering the building. Sit near your closest collaborators or find a quiet spot on the digital map. Once reserved, come into the office for a personalized desktop experience where your individual contacts, email, and calendar have been transferred to mirror your private, permanent workspace.
(See Workspace Reservation in action here)
Serve your customers with greater ease
If your day is filled with external client or customer meetings, then you know the headache of finding a convenient time to meet. Ditch the back-and-forth emails with Zoom Scheduler, our appointment-setting tool that lets you create an instant view of available meeting times to share with anyone. With just a few clicks, you can create blocks of time that work for you and let others schedule appointments on their terms. You can even set a buffer in between appointments for lunch breaks or prep time.
Once you’ve sent your Scheduler link to your customers, don’t forget to record the meeting using our conversational intelligence tool, Zoom IQ for Sales, to generate AI-powered conversation insights. You’ll walk away with ideas for next steps, areas for improvement, and a game plan to generate a better customer experience.
If your expertise is needed to help a fellow coworker resolve a customer issue, our omnichannel contact center is built right into the Zoom platform so you can chat with internal support agents in real-time while they provide customer support. Our combined contact center operations and unified communications platform make it easy to fully experience the ROI of an all-in-one provider.
Meet Zoom, your new productivity partner
As hybrid work continues to evolve, we’re all searching for ways to be more productive, efficient, and happy. With Zoom, it’s possible to have it all. Find out how to increase productivity and uncover new efficiencies when you remove the toggle tax and unite the customer and employee experience with one platform. Let’s partner together, today.
*Smart meeting recording with Zoom IQ is available to most paid users.
