External communication tool for businesses

External channels in Cliq help bring people outside your organization to join the particular channel with limited file sharing and permissions. You can also add your employees in the same channel to collaborate.

Similarly, with guest chat, the external user gets access only to that specific chat in a browser without the rest of the elements in the Cliq UI.

With cross org DM, you can invite an external contact who is part of a Cliq org. Once the user accepts the invite, you can start communicating with one-on-one chat and calls.

Networks is a great option if you want to support efficient external collaboration with the fully featured Cliq experience. With Networks, all members can engage in one-on-one-chats, join channels, attend meetings, share files, and collaborate in that particular network, while your org account is completely inaccessible to network members and helps keep your organization assets secure.

View a complete comparison of Cliq's external collaboration options

Organization admins can set up networks for their business from the admin panel to support external collaboration.

Cliq's Networks is protected by enterprise-grade security, just like our Business Organization option. Conversations are encrypted at rest and in transit to keep your communication completely safe and secure. Network admins can take complete control using permissions to restrict data within the network, and prevent data sharing outside the network.

External collaboration in business collaboration involves communicating with external stakeholders who aren't part of the organization but are involved in the day-to-day operational activities. This includes partners, vendors, contract employees and other stakeholders.

Business communication is not just limited to people within the organization. Teams are often required to communicate with people who aren't part of the organization's payroll, like ad agencies, vendors, partners or even contract employees. For this purpose, a dedicated space is required for collaborating with external stakeholders while not giving them any access to your organization's assets.

An external communication tool facilitates seamless communication with people outside your organization, encourages transparent and efficient communication, protects your organization's assets and ensures security as the external stakeholders are not added to the organization, and makes it easier for in-house employees to get work done from external parties.

• 1.     First understand the needs of your business.
• 2.     Start scouting for business communication tools that come with external collaboration capabilities.
• 3.     Check if the pricing and offering suit your budget.
• 4.     Ensure that the onboarding offered for external users is seamless.

Zoho Cliq Networks is a dedicated platform for external collaboration. You can communicate through one-to-one chat with members of the network, create channels for group collaboration, share files and also conduct audio and video meetings. Moreover, you don't need a Zoho Cliq account to join a network; all you need is a Zoho account. This facilitates simple onboarding and collaboration. Cliq Networks is offered as an add-on for organizations opting for the unlimited plan.