About 58% of people would rather go to a doctor’s appointment than attend a meeting, according to a 2022 article in Forbes. Other top contenders on the list include sitting in traffic (25%) and going to jury duty (17%). These are pretty dismal numbers, especially for sales representatives, customer success managers, and other employees whose job depends on hosting effective customer and prospect engagements.
Fortunately, all hope is not lost. There are many visual collaboration software solutions, like Alleo, that are specifically designed to enable you to build customizable, engaging presentations that’ll have attendees excited to participate. But what do you look for when you’re shopping around for online deep collaborative tools and processes? In this article, we’re exploring the top five features to look for in a deep collaboration platform that’ll help your team build customer-facing presentations that wow your customers.
What Is a Collaborative Tool—And What Exactly Is Deep Collaboration?
A collaborative tool is a solution that allows multiple participants to communicate with one another in a digital environment. With this in mind, what is the main purpose of collaborative tools? Often used in business contexts, collaborative tools enable both internal and external stakeholders to connect, engage, and create in a meaningful way. This leads to more productive and valuable conversations that drive better business outcomes.
While early iterations of collaborative tools have been around for quite some time—such as video calling and virtual whiteboarding—the newest and most innovative collaboration tools for business invoke deep collaboration.
But what is deep collaboration, anyway? A relatively new concept, deep collaboration refers to a specific subset of collaboration where all parties involved are deeply committed to an engaging, two-way partnership or discussion. Deep collaboration is typically characterized by equitable communication, a shared commitment to the conversation, and teamwork. A deep collaboration tool, then, is a platform that allows participants to engage in this meaningful type of connection.
What Are the Features of Collaboration Tools That Are Must-Haves?
With the array of online collaborative tools on the market today, sorting through the noise to find the best solution can certainly be a challenge. But at the end of the day, the best platforms are all-in-one solutions that meet your needs. As you’re doing your research, look for these 5 essential features of an online collaborative tool:
- Accessible: Let’s face it: hybrid and remote work aren’t going anywhere. Your customer presentations—whether they’re sales conversations with prospects, demos, or something entirely different—must be able to meet your attendees where they are. The best technology tools for collaboration allow attendees to connect from any time and anywhere using any internet-enabled device. At Alleo, our platform not only enables accessibility on any internet-enabled device, but it also allows presenters and attendees to participate, both synchronously and asynchronously.
- Customizable: Branding is everything—and it’s one of the best visual communicators to help your organization stand out from the competition. The best deep collaboration tools enable anyone from your organization to build a presentation that perfectly matches your brand. With Alleo, you can create customizable presentations and even use tools like templates, purpose-built activities, and interactive polls and surveys, to develop unique, memorable presentations.
- Engaging: You can’t have collaboration, let alone deep collaboration, without engagement. Yet we’ve all been on a call or presentation where the most exciting aspect is the speaker’s cat jumping into their lap. And while few can resist perking up at the sight of a pet, you need a collaboration tool that’ll capture, and elicit, your audience’s attention from the very first moment. As a visual storytelling platform, Alleo allows you to build multiple journeys within a presentation to cater to your audience and where the conversation takes you.
- Equitable: One of the hallmarks of deep collaboration is collaborative equity, or the ability to ensure that everyone present feels empowered to express themselves. Conversations that champion collaborative equity are more engaging, creative, and innovative, as you’ll hear multiple perspectives. With Alleo, you have access to features like whiteboarding, voting, and live chat so attendees can participate in the way they’re most comfortable with.
- Simple: Of course, even the best tools will go unused—or underused—if they’re not intuitive. Look for a deep collaboration tool like Alleo with capabilities like no-code designs and pre-built templates that ensure that anyone—no matter how tech-savvy they are—can create stunning, interactive presentations.
Alleo: Empowering Better Business Collaboration
Meetings matter—but in a world where 58% of people would rather be at a doctor’s appointment, presenters are up against some real challenges. We created Alleo to help businesses meet these challenges head on with engagement and collaboration.
Our all-in-one deep collaboration tool enables businesses to craft high-impact customer presentations, meetings, and workshops that truly drive outcomes. With features for video conferencing, live chat, interactive meetings, whiteboarding, and more, Alleo is a virtual hub for all your deep collaboration needs. You bring the awe-worthy content, we provide the best-in-class platform to power it.
Ready to learn more about Alleo? Sign up for a demo today to get started!
