Item: Slack
Rating: 10
Author: Dan Wilkins

Overall Satisfaction with Slack

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Slack is used as our main form of internal communications. We are a remote first company so we rely heavily on a-sync comms and Slack is perfect for that.

We have multiple channels set up for direct conversations, updates, housing important documents etc.

Beyond that as part of our business offering we offer direct slack support channels with our customers, so we have multiple external channels to communication in rapid time with our customers.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Integrations
Ability to add external users
UI is easy to use
Ability to house files
Huddles / calls built in
Workflows

Cons

Huddle audio can be patchy sometimes
Would be useful to have integration with external calendars for automatic availability
Ability to see if your message has been read

Return on Investment

Slack had the ability for us to create a first party slack integration with our product, meaning we can use that as a business offering - leading to better revenue generated
We can also create external slack channels with customers, helping to lead to customer retention rates increasing
We have generated multiple new customers by being able to set up external slack channels with prospective customers, allowing us to quickly reach stakeholders when they were at a critical point in their decision making process
It has positively impacted our sales process. Using the workflows we have created a clean flow for lead submission which loops in all relevant parties with the needed information in a clean channel, as opposed to relying on sharing notes or documents

Usability

The UI is incredibly intuitive, everything is where you would expect it to be and there is a strong level of support in 'how to' guides etc when needed. The ability to toggle between light and dark mode for accessibility is also super important.

I knocked a couple of points off as I do find sometimes the areas can cross over 'home', 'DMs' and 'Activity' can often house the same notifications so some users could get lost. And I find the UI for huddles could be better configured, it seems to jump between your original window and a new window when using huddles on desktop which can be a bit frustrating to understand where the screen you're trying to view has gone.

Alternatives Considered

Google Chat and Microsoft Teams

Having had a lot of experience with Google Chat and Teams, Slack is far and away the better option.

In comparison to Teams, Slack is much cleaner with a far more user friendly AI, Teams is far too clunky and feels tiresome to use, whereas it is super easy to pick up Slack and be able to configure it do exactly what you need.

Whilst I don't find a massive difference between the usability and UI of Google Chat to Slack. Slack's range of features far outweighs Google Chat. The ease of external connections, workflows, file sharing, external connections for notifications (Make, Zapier etc), plus the huge range of apps you can connect to enhance your workspace is incredible.

Google Chat does benefit from directly integrating into your Google Suite so you can get access to automatic status updates based on calendar activity, which would be nice for Slack to have.

Key Insights

Do you think Slack delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Slack's feature set?

Yes

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?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Slack again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Aircall, Orum, Google Workspace, Calendly, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo.io, Warmy, Outseta, HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub, Lusha, ZoomInfo Sales, RocketReach, ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude

Likelihood to Recommend

Slack is perfect for any company that needs a messaging tool. I had previously used Google Chat and I've found since moving to Slack that the range of features is lightyears ahead.

From the ability to house files / canvases in channels, setting up notification only channels so that you don't need to fill up important comms channels with updates.

It is also perfect for allowing teams to communication a-synchronously with customers, as we're able to create external support channels which benefits our offering massively.

I would say it would benefit from improving the huddle UX slightly, it can be a little clunky when jumping between screen shares etc, and the product is definitely optimised for message comms as opposed to call comms, however having huddles built in is still super useful.

It would also be great to enable read receipts, this would be super useful for communicating with external parties when offering support etc to provide better visibility.

Slack Feature Ratings

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation