A Surprise Underdog Comes Through

I believe we made a great decision by choosing Blink and I would recommend them to any other company looking to up their communication game.

Pros

In searching for a new communication platform, I thought I knew what I was looking for and which company I would go with. Blink was added as just another platform for comparison. However, during my first demo, I was convinced this was the right choice. It ticked off all the boxes: top down communication, bottom up communication, side to side communication, individual and group chats, an information repository, and one of the best price points of (in my opinion) even inferior platforms. Plus, they were up front about all costs, so I didn't have to worry about a surprise invoice I would have to explain.

Cons

There are a few small functionality issues I have had since getting into the platform (such as not having control over what shows up under an employee name or what is displayed in the Directory), but I have been assured the team is adding my suggestions to their list and looking into how we can work around the other issues.

Excellent! Zero Complaints!

Just prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions put in place, our company anticipated needing a way to communicate internally with our staff and contractors about rapid changes to our workplace and daily lives. Most of our staff are front-line workers and do not have company email accounts. Our internal scheduling app that we use for hourly staff did not have the ability to upload attachments or allow staff to respond to high alert notifications. Setup was quick and easy. We were able to test Blink for free prior to committing to it, but knew immediately that it was perfect for our needs. Now, several months into the COVID-19 crisis, we've seen a shift from senior staff using the app solely for important internal communications, to all staff using it for staff recognition, company highlights, events, contests, motivational and uplifting posts, etc. It helps keeps our employees engaged and informed, allowing everyone to have a voice, and it seems to help boost employee morale.

Pros

- Ability to share and communicate with all employees or with individual teams - Quick and helpful responses from Blink staff/developers -- willingness to go above and beyond to meet our company's needs - Allows for multiple administrators at different levels - Ease of use - Ability to communicate privately -- staff can even contact our CEO and get a real-time response - Real-time chat - Search feature - Ability to use on smartphone and PC

Cons

When we first started using Blink, posts were limited to one attachment each, which has since been updated. Blink has evolved quickly and quite honestly we have zero complaints.

Fine for communications, lacking in other features

More casual internal communications and email but very primitive. Newsfeed is good but difficult to search so only really works for real-time updates. Lack of ability to share files properly limos use severely and the ‘hub’ feature is too basic as it does not allow the creation of pages to view only upload of docs. The admin and access level features are not rounded enough, it’s all or nothing!

Pros

Simple IM app and the newsfeed like appearance of the home page. Some limited integrations, calendar works well.

Cons

Lacking in support for 3rd party apps, no ability to view documents in the app only have attachments.

Alternative Intranet

We're still playing around with the features but so far after less than a month we are happy with what we are working with.

Pros

- free for up to 20 users - great alternative to a company intranet / communication portal for the micro businesses who want to share their management system documentation with field staff and don't want to fork out expensive licences with Microsoft for similar products like yammer / SharePoint. - if you are IT savvy and know how to build microapps feature will draw your attention. - Can download on android and iOS devices - Has a desktop app for windows and iOS devices

Cons

- you have to purchase the premier package at a monthly cost per user to do branding. It would be good if there was a fixed fee per month for up to 10 users for the small companies e.g. £20 plus VAT.

We use Blink as our main communication tool as we are split between two office or on customer site.

Pros

After several false starts with other applications, the team quickly adopted Blink. Within two weeks we had rolled out Blink as the tool of choice. We are distributed over two offices and/or on customer site - so having a central messaging tool that everyone uses is great. New joiners find it easy to learn/use. We have some company-wide channels, individual team channels, lots of ad hoc groups, and then normal direct messaging. Due to the ease of use we use it regularly to bring small/ad hoc project teams together in order to share documentation and messaging. The fact that there is a desktop app, a web app, an iOS app and Android app means Blink can be used where ever you are. We like the lightning-quick search, have linked it to both Jira and Office 365, and have plans to extend it with an in-house Bot. New features are released on a regular basis and if we have any questions then we have found the support to be very quick and helpful.

Cons

The main limitation is that we still need to use a separate application for screen sharing and voice calls. It would be nice if this feature was added. However, we would rather use Blink for messaging and sharing than go to product that was a unified platform but a poorer experience. For that reason we still currently use Skype for Business for voice and screen sharing but have chosen not to use Microsoft Teams for colloboration as we think Blink is a far better experience.