Tech tips for small businesses: 5 ways to save time and get more done with Zoom Workplace

Small businesses have a large impact on our lives and the economy. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, these businesses, defined as independent organizations with less than 500 employees, make up an astonishing 99.9% of firms across the U.S.

As a small business owner, you have to be scrappy. You need to find savvy ways to break out in today’s crowded market — reach new audiences, automate processes, improve efficiencies, and do more with less. The right technology can unlock all that, and then some. 

A 2023 study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce showed that 95% of small-business owners use at least one tech platform or tool to run their business, with the average owner utilizing four different platforms. Eighty-eight percent of these owners said that technology helped them communicate more effectively with customers and 71% said that technology helped them access high-quality talent. 

But some may not realize that they only need one platform for their communication and collaboration needs. Zoom Workplace, our open collaboration platform with AI Companion, brings together phone, team chat, whiteboard, meetings, smart documents, and third-party integrations into a single user experience strengthened by AI Companion to help you get more done and connect with customers.

Try these five time-saving tips to help your business get the biggest bang for your buck with Zoom Workplace.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce small-business survey reports that 84% of businesses said they were optimistic that AI would help their business grow in the future. However, 25% of businesses that don’t use AI cite concerns about cost as a barrier to adoption.

While some companies charge a premium for AI capabilities per user, Zoom AI Companion, your smart AI assistant on Zoom Workplace, is included at no additional cost with your paid Zoom plan.* 

Just click the AI Companion sparkle icon when you’re hosting a Zoom meeting. This will allow you to turn on meeting summaries or ask a question like “catch me up” to get the details on what has been discussed so far. 

In addition to summarizing meetings, AI Companion can also help you compose email and chat messages, brainstorm and organize content on a whiteboard, and prioritize your voicemails and summarize phone calls on Zoom Phone. These capabilities enable you to be more efficient, which means you can spend your valuable time doing more meaningful work.

Visit our AI Companion page to learn more about how these capabilities can benefit small businesses.

You might be familiar with Zoom Workplace as the app you use to join Zoom Meetings. But there’s so much you can do from the Zoom Workplace desktop app:

• Chat with teammates on Zoom Team Chat, which is included with all Zoom accounts — you can create channels with groups of people or send direct one-on-one messages.
• Connect your Google or Microsoft calendar with your Zoom account to see all your meetings in the Calendar tab. You can join Zoom Meetings with a few simple clicks (you won’t have to hunt for the meeting link anymore!), schedule meetings directly in the Zoom Workplace app, and more.
• Connect your Google or Microsoft email account with your Zoom account (or set up a free email address with Zoom Mail) to easily access email messages without having to navigate to a different app. You can even use AI Companion to help you compose emails!
• If you have Zoom Phone, use the softphone interface in the Zoom Workplace app to make calls, view and listen to voicemails, send text messages, and more.
• Access a suite of built-in productivity tools to create notes, video clips, and whiteboards, which you can easily share with your colleagues.
• If you are using Workvivo's employee experience software, you can access it directly in the app to view colleagues’ posts, give kudos to a teammate, read company news, and explore different department spaces.

If you haven’t already, download the latest version of the Zoom Workplace app and explore the tabs in the top navigation bar to see how you can leverage more of Zoom while you work. 

Appointment scheduling apps can help your team cut down on the time spent setting up meetings with prospects, customers, and clients. Instead of emailing back and forth to schedule an appointment, all your customer needs to do is click on a scheduling link and select a date and time that works for them to book a spot on your calendar. 

If you have a Zoom Workplace Business or Business Plus account, you get access to Zoom Scheduler right in your desktop or mobile app at no additional cost. Zoom Scheduler syncs with your Google, Microsoft, or Zoom calendar to make booking easy, and you don’t have to worry about sending an email with a Zoom meeting link — it’s all taken care of automatically.

If your Zoom Workplace plan doesn’t come with Scheduler, you can add it on for less than other scheduling apps like Calendly. Learn more about how Zoom Scheduler stacks up against Calendly.

Important conversations don’t end when a Zoom meeting is over. In fact, a lot of critical action items, discussions, and decision-making actually happen once you leave your Zoom call. Learning how to use Zoom Workplace throughout the meeting lifecycle (the time you spend before, during, and after your meetings) is key to spending your time more effectively.

When you schedule a meeting in the Zoom Workplace app, click the option to enable continuous meeting chat. This lets you start a group chat with meeting attendees beforehand to align on agenda items or share pre-meeting materials for review. Once the meeting starts, you can refer back to those messages and continue chatting in the meeting. After the meeting is over, continue the conversation in Team Chat. You can share the AI Companion meeting summary and revisit discussion threads to close the loop on outstanding items.

Want more Team Chat tips? Check out our blog to learn how to use this free chat tool to collaborate and stay connected.

According to a 2022 Morning Consult survey commissioned by Zoom,** 76% of small-business owner respondents said they use phones daily to communicate. However, only 17% of respondents reported using a softphone interface (a software program on your computer or mobile app for making telephone calls over the Internet).

Zoom Phone brings your phone communications into the cloud, letting you and your employees access your business phone from the Zoom Workplace desktop or mobile app. That means you can make and receive calls from any compatible device, whether you’re in the office, at home, or on the go. You can also keep your existing compatible desk phones if you want, or choose supported desk and conference phones from our leading hardware partners.

Here are just a few ways Zoom Phone helps improve communications among your employees and customers:

• Employees can leverage AI Companion for Zoom Phone to save time by summarizing calls and text messages, prioritizing voicemails, and more.
• You can use your favorite business tools in tandem with Zoom Phone. Our phone solution integrates with essential applications like Salesforce, Google G-Suite, ServiceNow, and HubSpot.
• It’s easy to add and manage users in Zoom Phone. This makes it especially great for small business owners who might wear many hats and lack the IT resources to manage a more complex solution.
• You can set up call queues to help lessen response times. Divide and conquer customer inquiries by routing calls to a designated group of users, such as a sales or support team, so the first person available can answer the phone.
• Employees may be on a phone call and want to draw a quick sketch or pull up a document to review with the other people on the phone. With Zoom Workplace, employees can easily go from a phone call to a video meeting when the situation requires, helping enable a more productive conversation.

If you want more tips for running your small business with Zoom, check out our on-demand webinar breaking down the top 10 Zoom Workplace features to help small businesses save time and improve how you work.

Editor's note: This blog was originally published in July 2023 and was updated in July 2024 with new tips and information.

*Included with the paid services in Zoom user accounts. AI Companion may not be available for all regions or industry verticals.

**Morning Consult surveyed 500 decision-makers of small- and medium-sized businesses in the United States from January 14-January 24, 2022. The audience was defined as those at organizations with 11-500 employees at the VP level and above. The data was unweighted, and Morning Consult used quotas to approximate the composition of the audience. The margin of error for this study is +/ 4 percentage points.