Achieve smooth online communication with your colleagues at a virtual office
90% of employees switched from chat tools to collaborating in a virtual office environment
It’s been almost a year since COVID-19 has accelerated the trend toward teleworking. On the plus side, working from home reduces emissions and office costs, and it helps employees achieve a more balanced work/family life. Nonetheless, managing a team of remote workers can be tough especially when it comes to online communication between team members. We talked around this topic with NTTPC Communications, who found oVice while having such communication troubles, and we asked them about the reasons that made them use oVice and the things that came out of it for their remote team.
Interview company: NTTPC Communications
Number of oVice users: Approximately 150 people in the Infrastructure Service Department, Technology & Operations Development Headquarters
Interviewee: Mr. Nezu, Infrastructure Service Department
Crafting a timely and natural online communication couldn’t be achieved not after oVice…
Everyone started working from home, and I started feeling that it was difficult for employees to communicate with each other. More than 90% of employees were working from home and collaborating using chat tools etc., but since they do not necessarily see it in real-time, they mostly reply the next day or even later. I wondered if I could be able to communicate as smoothly as when I was at our physical office and I stumbled upon virtual office tools. I tried some other than oVice, but honestly, the voice quality is not that impressive, the number of people is limited, the background is inorganic and I didn’t feel like I was working in an almost real office. There were many points that did not draw me into continue using those tools until I switched to oVice.
A virtual office that fosters both the goodness of ‘cospa’ and the personality of employees
I think the first thing that pulled me in is that oVice spaces are limited by the number of people connecting simultaneously in one space and not by user ID. Taking the example of a space that can be accessed by 200 people at the same time, even if the number of guests accessing the space exceeds 500, there wouldn’t be a problem as long as they do not access at the same exact time. If you want to know more details about this matter, you can go to the virtual office of oVice and ask the staff directly. This is another powerful point I felt when using oVice, the innovative live support system is fascinating.
Another feature that I thought is convenient is the fact that everyone interacts as avatars. It makes it good to see each individual person properly, and because I can see the team around me, it becomes easier and faster to reach to one employee and start a conversation with them. For people who get confused when first using oVice, they quickly learn how to follow the right path of usage and experiment to find their own creative way of how to use the service. It gets exciting to see a glimpse of everyone’s personality in a virtual space in an almost-same way seeing it face to face. I feel that oVice really makes up for the parts that cannot be covered by chat and video conferencing.
Introducing oVice to the team: a quick briefing session is held once a week to get familiarized with the service operation
The manager and the person in charge of promoting oVice regularly check in with our employees and invite them to learn the proper usage of oVice for a better communication. Also, we all get together once a week in the space and have time to talk loosely and comfortably. Communication inside the virtual space is so much fun and the more people get accustomed to the service operation the more we get to establish a better way of communication. With time and practice, many employees understand that they can interact openly and have genuine conversations with each other unlike the way they do in meetings that are held with video conferencing tools.
What do you imagine yourself doing at oVice?
First of all, after mastering the use of our virtual office, we will set up a public space at oVice where we would invite vendors to meet and respond to customers. I feel that it is epoch-making to be able to talk to employees directly by accessing that space, and it would be interesting if customers could think, “Is there such a format?”. Let me tell you that there is.
◆ About oVice
A 2-D virtual space where you can talk just like in-person!
If you want to experience oVice, you can have a demo experience .
If you would like to have your own virtual space , please apply for a free trial and use it freely for 30 days.
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