Did you know that employees that are happy with their company culture and workplace are more likely to stay with their employer and complete tasks efficiently? In the past few years, many companies have had to take their workplace from on-site to online, seeing employees complete their usual workloads from home, causing issues regarding company social interaction.
Keeping workers connected and establishing a company culture while working remotely is no easy task. Many employees needing help staying motivated. Nevertheless, there’s a way to overcome this struggle! Virtual coffee apps provide companies with a good starting point when facing the struggles of remote working. They have the potential to positively improve employee engagement.
In this article, I’ll take you through how virtual coffee apps can improve the work lives of your employees by establishing better relationships and encouraging healthy social interaction. I’ll provide a thorough rundown of what a virtual coffee app is and discuss how it can help your organization while pointing you towards the app that’s currently the best on the market. So, keep reading as I dive into the world of virtual coffee apps with you!
What Is A Virtual Coffee App?
A virtual coffee app is a platform you and your company can use to schedule virtual coffee chat meetings. These are spontaneous introduction meetings that increase employee interaction and engagement. This can help your people in your organization grow their professional network and establish a better sense of community.
In an office environment, employees often bump into each other around the office. This can happen during lunches or standing around the coffee machine. These interactions spark conversations about interests outside of work, their upcoming holidays, or even cracking some lighthearted jokes. These casual office meets inspired the creation of coffee matching apps. You and your team can sustain healthy interaction with peers either from the comfort of your home office or in office.
Employee matching platforms typically integrate with the communication platform your company typically uses, with Microsoft Teams being one of the most popular options.
CoffeePals Vs. Lead Bot
Now that you know what a virtual coffee app is, I’ll take you through two of the most popular options for you to consider: CoffeePals and Lead. Both apps have excellent features that make them user-friendly and can hugely benefit company engagement and interaction. Although they share a similar end goal of improving company social interaction, both platforms have variations that make them unique and stand out.
But which is best for your company? Let's take a look at the different elements you need to consider!
Features
The most critical element of a coffee matching app for you to consider is the features included in the platform. These features help make a positive difference to your company, ensuring employee interaction is more straightforward to initiate than ever before.
To help you discover the features of CoffeePals and Lead, I’ve put together a side-by-side comparison of each platform's top features. So let's dive into these features together and assess how they’ll help your company!
When assessing the above features, it’s clear that Lead focuses on practical elements that can be beneficial if using a coffee app to monitor engagement. But, CoffeePals will provide users with a more interactive and engaging service centered around employee needs, which is more sought after when focussing on directly improving your employees' remote working lives.
Customer Service
It’s essential that Lead and CoffeePals have simple customer service, ensuring users can get support if needed. I’ve looked into both platforms' customer service offerings and assessed which is more effective.
CoffeePals have a help center that allows users to find common queries and support without getting directly in touch. On the other hand, Lead doesn't have a help center or a FAQs section on their website, so users may spend additional time finding solutions to commonly asked questions and may find it hard to get in touch with someone that can help them.
Both platforms have chat query options that allow you to directly and virtually chat with a consultant. Although it’s excellent that both apps have this customer service feature, Lead can take up to 24 hours to respond to user messages and emails. In contrast, CoffeePals chat query response time is estimated at 2 hours maximum. Again, this makes CoffeePals a more reliable service users can trust will be when they need.
Technology
If you don't have much experience with technology, you may be worried about how easy it is to use a virtual coffee app. To help you understand the technology requirements for CoffeePals and Lead, I have looked into the technology needed to manage and use each platform and how HR departments and employees can adapt to this.
The good news is that CoffeePals and Lead are user-friendly apps that anyone with little to no experience in technology should be able to utilize. Both apps are designed for integration with Teams, which employees will likely already have on their electrical devices.
Additionally, automated matching ensures virtual meetups are consistent and require little interference from HR or supervisor roles.
Ease Of Use
It’s important to point out that CoffeePals and Lead are designed to make companies' lives easier. They both aim to mimic the way remote employees previously interacted with one another in a physical workspace. Taking this into consideration, both platforms should be easy to use and require little time dedicated to setting them up.
To use CoffeePals, you first need to create a team, download the app in Teams, add the bot to your CoffeePals team and invite employees to join. This simple process ensures you can instantly hit the ground running with CoffeePals, adding employees to the platform and allowing the automated matching to work its magic.
Lead works similarly, requiring users to add Lead to a Microsoft Team. From here, the bot creates automated matches, which will allow different members of your team to meet up for a virtual coffee easily.
Integrations
Your virtual coffee app should be easy to integrate with your chosen platform. Luckily, both CoffeePals and Lead are simple to incorporate with Microsoft Teams, only requiring an app to be downloaded and members to be invited.
You can integrate Lead with Slack as well as Teams. However, as CoffeePals has focussed its time on making its platform specifically for Teams, the platform is more advanced and provides a better user experience.
Design / UX
A virtual coffee app's design is essential, as you should find the layout easy to navigate, and it should be aesthetically pleasing to ensure team satisfaction. CoffeePals and Lead are dedicated to creating a seamless user experience that looks and operates efficiently.
Lead is a user-friendly platform but has a slightly more outdated layout than CoffeePals. The design includes surveys and email chains that can become clunky over time. Leads focus is primarily helping HR managers hit their metrics rather than creating opportunities for employees to meet. However, these features do benefit HR departments when monitoring how employees interact with the platform.
Aesthetically, CoffeePals has a competitive advantage, because the platform has a more interactive, engaging, and straightforward layout that users can become confident with quickly. CoffeePals also conveys a more casual and employee focused approach to it’s messaging. If you want your employees to look forward to using the virtual coffee app, I recommend using CoffeePals, as aesthetics and tone go a long way!
Pricing
Of course, your entire decision of which virtual coffee app you’d like to use shouldn't only be centered around how much a platform costs. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a huge deciding factor for most companies! CoffeePals and Lead are both priced differently; let's take a look at how this translates.
A great selling point of both platforms is that it’s free to match teams comprising of less than 25 users. The free plans of each platform come with the basic features a small company would need to set up meetings and keep a team engaged virtually.
If your team has more than 24 users, consider the different pricing plans available. The cheapest plan courtesy of CoffeePals starts at $49 per month and access to several premium features, like unlimited teams, onboarding and mentorship program creation, and a full analytics display containing match history.
Lead's standard membership fee is $39 per month, and provides you with more interactive features and engagement insights.
Although CoffeePals is slightly more expensive, this price reflects the extensive range of detailed features available with the platform, which makes this figure justifiable. CoffeePals also has a 14-day free trial, allowing users to get to know and use the pro features of the platform.
Which App is Best For Your Business?
There are promising elements of both apps that could benefit your business. But, deciding which app to use will come down to the specific needs of your business and which app meets these needs best.
If you're looking for an app that shows feedback and allows you to delve into your employees' engagement and interactions, Lead may be suitable. The platform's survey features operate by keeping practicality at their core, making the platform a dependable service.
Alternatively, CoffeePals has more interactive elements that allow a user-friendly and engaging experience. The platform is aesthetically pleasing and is matched with a robust range of features that ensure companies' employee engagement rises and that interactions are fun and have a low chance of being awkward.
Both platform are free to install and start using with a small group. This means you should test drive both platforms before making a decision.
The Verdict
Although the end decision of which app is best for you and your business will depend on your company's needs, there are clear indications of how to decide this and which app may be better in a general sense.
CoffeePals has a more advanced range of innovative features that cater to small, mid-size, and large teams. Paired with a 14-day free trial, to ensure users are happy with the platform before starting a paid membership, CoffeePals shows commitment to customer satisfaction. This aspect alone is a huge selling point; your company will gain a lot from pursuing a free trial for such a great coffee app.
Both apps have great features, but with reasonable pricing, a user-friendly experience, and a simple integration process, CoffeePals comes up on top!
FAQS
What is CoffeePals?
CoffeePals is an employee matching app that allows users to meet up for a coffee chat during their working day. The app aims to create deeper connections throughout the company and build a more robust network.
How do you use CoffeePals?
To use CoffeePals, create a team in Microsoft Teams. Then, download the CoffeePals app, add it to the team you've created. Be sure to include members who would enjoy scheduled virtual meetings.
How do you do a virtual coffee break?
To run a successful virtual coffee break, schedule a 15–30 minute virtual meeting with team members. Allow your employees to talk about leisurely subjects and interact with each other on a casual basis to grow connections.
How do I host a virtual coffee meeting?
Agree on a date and time between you and your team members, using a virtual coffee app like CoffeePals to manage who wants to participate. Make sure everyone brings a refreshment, has their camera on, and uses this time to get to know each other on a personal level. For administrators of the program, it’s also important to make sure that you are following all the right steps to make it a success in the organization.
