Item: Slack
Rating: 10
Author: Leonardo Oliveira

Overall Satisfaction with Slack

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Slack especially for communication. This tool replaced Google Hangouts - which we had been using for 2 years and were very used to. I don't usually adapt easily to new things, but all the ease provided by Slack helped a lot in our adaptation. It's a multifaceted tool - simple for those who just want to communicate, but with degrees of complexity for those who want to go beyond that. We've been using it for over 2 years and to this day we've found new functions - such as organizing tasks by scheduling notifications and stakeholders for that task. Not to mention the quizzes, file upload, profile customization, integration with other apps and other hidden functions that I need to discover.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Communication - it does get people closer and enhance the way we interact with each other.
User friendly - the app has its complexities, but at a simple surface it's really easy to use. If you just need to DM people, you'll have it. If you need more complex functions like organizing a task schedule, you'll have it as well.
Other app integration - Slack allows us to integrate with some other apps and them make our job easier. We can add pools, upload things, and so many other things!
Stickers - it does make our job funnier by letting us upload an image as a sticker and use it in the posts - either as a frozen image or a gif. We have a lot of stickers of ourselves that brought us a lot of laughter and it really reduces stress in the workplace.
You have full control of your profile and especially of your notification settings. My role demands me to be added in a lot of groups, but some are obviously more important than others. Thus, having full control gives me the access to turn on or turn off the notifications whenever needed.
Status message: Slack also does help us letting us add a message in our profile. So, for example, if anyone DMs us when we are busy or absent, the message will appear for them. It help us a lot because sometimes we cannot reply, and that message justifies our delay.

Cons

Updates: some of updates were great because they added a lot of new stuff, but some of them were not - for example, whenever the interface changes. We are used to the previous one and the new one is very different. I mean, you don't fix what's not broken, right? So, we don't see any need to change the visual that much.
Bug - sometimes the app opens all by itself (minimized) and when I click it, I can't open again. I have to go to the browser and click an option to have it open in the app.
Complexity - some of the complex part of the app is not that user friendly. There are functions there (pools, for example) that are not easy to handle. We don't have enough info to create one, it seems it expects us to know how it works.

Return on Investment

Time management: with so many organizational features, we can gain some extra time to be used in some other thing.
Audio option: when the message is too long or it can't be properly explained with only letters, the audio is an awesome option. It makes the message clear, it avoids misunderstanding and thus it does save us from a lot of trouble, especially with important documents or tasks. People can even listen to the audio when they are doing another thing, or we can send instructions via audio so people can practice while listening to us.
Made people closer: the user friendly experience, the way Slack allows us to interact with stickers or personalized messages or audio files is awesome. We became closer and the workplace became a healthier place.

Usability

At the basic surface, Slack does deliver everything we need - easy to handle, easy to understand.

But, as I said earlier, there are the more complex parts which demand more of us and some of them even lack information about how to be used, which is frustrating. If we could have maybe a section with instructions, or maybe if you make the features easier to use, it would be awesome.

Alternatives Considered

LivePerson Conversation Cloud (LiveEngage) and Google Chat

Key Insights

Do you think Slack delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Slack's feature set?

Did Slack live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Slack go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Slack again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Salesforce CMS, LivePerson Conversation Cloud (LiveEngage), Google Gemini

Likelihood to Recommend

I'd highly recommend. As I said, we use Slack for communication - I can DM people, create groups, set a status, add a sticker, upload a document.

Visually, the app is simple but beautiful.

The app is user friendly at its basic state.

There is one specific awesome feature there. Well, I need to request something from another team and that's a daily task. It used to consume my time and sometimes I forgot about it. My boss didn't like that. This feature that a friend of mine warned me is awesome because it allows us to program an automatic message in a group or to someone especially, that way I managed to program it to be sent daily at the same needed hour. The team received that message successfully and they fullfil my request. My boss is now happy

Slack Feature Ratings

Using Slack

Users and Roles

102 - Some sort of intranet, we used to use Google Hangouts before. We use Slack mostly to communicate between ourselves, but there are also a lot of other functions like organizing tasks, schedules, stakeholders and etc. We not only send DM messages to each other, but also create groups with different goals to achieve our purposes.

Support Headcount Required

102 - Agents: people that usually provide support to our customers, and thus they need our help.

Quality Analysts: people responsible to analyze the support provided by agents. They also provide feedback and support.

Trainers: people responsible to teach our
knowledge to our agents.

Team leaders: people that are responsible for the professional growth of the agents. They also provide support to our customers.

Apart from that, we also have managers, real time analysts, data analysts, clients, T.I.s and etc.

Business Processes Supported

Communication
Organization
Healthier environment
Fun workplace
Gain of time
Task schedule
Action plans

Innovative Uses

Create pools as part of action plans
Create groups with anyone to provide information
Organize tasks and schedules
Program automatic messages

Future Planned Uses

Add new apps into the integration
Send voice messages
Create training or feedback sessions through video calls or voice messages
Create podcasts

Likelihood to Renew

Slack is wonderful, it is a tool that changed our perspective and our way to work. We used to use another one, which was purely and sorely designed to messages. Slack provides us that possibility and more, all the other functions that we daily use in our work routine, not to mention the fact that Slack has a wonderful design and it's really easy to use and adapt.

Evaluating Slack and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - Google Hangouts (today is called "Google Chat"). We wanted something else, something that would improve our internal communication (since most of the team works in home office) and could be used to something else, like making people learn more about our products or apply knowledge tests or even make the environment healthier and funnier.

Key Differentiators

Integration with Other Systems
Ease of Use
Other

The possibility to improve our working ways.
One place to hold everyone. All the team in the same place, meaning the messages won't be shattered and thus we will not create any misunderstanding - something that was very common back in the day.

We see that our scores and alignment are much better today than ever was.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Look, I don't even think we are considering changing anything. We are really proud of our choice and this will remain for a long time at least. We are still learning how to use the tool (after years using it) and surely really expecting more updates from this app Slack.

Slack Implementation

Implementation Rating

I was not part of the implementation team, but I recall being 100% happy and excited to learn and use a new tool. I'm still am to be honest.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Change Management Lessons

Change management was minimal

Implementation Issues

People getting use to another tool
People delaying answers because they were finding out how do things
People with login/credential errors

Slack Training

Training Types Used

No Training

In-Person Training

Online Training

Ease of Slack Training

Yes, pretty easy to use it actually. The major Slack's functionalities like sending messages are something that don't require any training or major instructions, people only needed to sit and make attempts to see how the app works. Not difficult at all.

Of course, there are some complex functions there, but you can still use Slack normally even if you choose not to use this other functions.

Configuring Slack

Product Configurability

It is mostly right. We have a lot of ways to personalize our profile - photo, name, bio, curiosities, among other things. We can also set some other things like automatic messages, which is something a little bit more complex than the things mentioned above, but it is still not one of the most complex things of the app. All people need to learn and use it is patience.

Configuration Lessons

The best practice to learn anything is having will and patience. With only this 2 things you can achieve anything in your life. But, cutting the self-help talk, Slack give us some instructions to learn more about the app, these are clear instructions as people told me. And, of course, if people need something else, they can watch a video or ask for some help.

UI Customization

No - we have not done any customization to the interface

Extensibility and Customization

No - we have not done any custom code

Additional Customization Considerations

The profile customization is amazing. We can add a profile photo, status, bio, preferences, gender, personal curiosities like favorite movies or books. It was my favorite part of the customization, I recall staying there for some minutes just to answer all the profile questions.

Slack Support

Slack Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution	None

Using Slack

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use	Unnecessarily complex

Easy Tasks

Send audio files
Upload images
Add stickers
Add status into the profile
Create groups
See profile information

Difficult Tasks

Pools creation

Slack Reliability

Reliability and Availability

Yes, the app works 24/7. I don't even recall having any period that we could not use since the implementation. Even the maintenance periods are barely noticeable and our work is not impacted by it when it happens.

Performance

Slack is a soft app, we don't have many issues with it. I recall one or two people complaining about something during our usage period, but I didn't have a bad experience. When the app is slow, usually the problem is with my computer or my internet. The app works just fine.

Integrating Slack

Ease of Integration

It was fairly easy. We have the possibility to integrate other products, I just added Guru to be honest, and it was fine - the app works good enough. Haven't tried anything else other than Guru. There's another functionality that I need to explore more, for sure. I will do it as soon as possible.

Systems Integrated With

Guru

Not difficult at all.

Future Integration Plans

Spotify
Wikipedia
Gemini
Chat GPT

Types of Integration

AppExchange or similar marketplace

Integration Lessons Learned

Don't be like me, explore Slack much more. Don't be afraid to take risks, to learn new things, to kill some time trying to find out how to do things. It will only benefit you. Slack is awesome but there can be something that other product can add, and since we have this possibility here, use it.

I'm using this advice for me as well