Overall Satisfaction with Slack
For us, we started using Slack after the Google Talk windows app was no longer supported or available. We tried to use Google Hangouts but were hugely disappointed. We are in a small office environment of less than 20 employees all in one location so our instant messaging needs may be different than others.
- Direct 1:1 instant messaging.
- Small group instant messaging.
- Topic (hashtag) conversations about a particular item.
- The mobile app and notifications are nice and well supported.
- I may be unique in that I would like to be able to enable notification for all activity, rather than just mentions or direct messages.
- The windows app can be a little slow sometimes when searching for an individual I want to direct message.
- We are experiencing quicker collaboration within our office between coworkers.
- Employees are quickly able to recall the most recent conversations surrounding a topic or channel.
- Google Hangouts and Google Talk
Originally, and for the prior 5 years, we had been using Google Talk. Once Google started trying to move everyone over to Google Hangouts, the experience went down. Google Hangouts was a train wreck from the beginning with Google forcing users to use the Chrome app. For our users, it was best to have an app that automatically opened and logged in on computer login and remained in the toolbar. Slack was finally able to do that.