The Rise of Slack: Why B2B Communication is Moving Away from Email

Email has been the go-to method of business communication for decades. But as the world of work has evolved, so too has the way we communicate. More and more businesses are turning to messaging platforms like Slack to keep their teams connected and productive.

Slack is becoming the communication tool of choice for businesses for many reasons. For one, it's faster and more efficient than email. With Slack, you can get real-time responses to your queries, which is ideal for fast-paced work environments.

Another advantage of Slack is that it's more user-friendly than email. With its intuitive interface and features like drag-and-drop file sharing, Slack makes it easy for even the most tech-averse users to get up and running quickly.

Finally, Slack is more flexible than email. With various integrations and customization options, businesses can tailor Slack to their specific needs.

So why is email out and Slack in for business communication? The answer is simple: Slack is a more efficient, user-friendly, and flexible way to keep teams connected and productive.

Disadvantages of using email over channels like slack

Email has been the standard communication tool for businesses for many years. However, it is now being replaced by newer tools like Slack. There are several reasons for this shift.

One of the most significant disadvantages of email is that it could be more real-time. This can be a big problem when communicating with customers or team members in different time zones. With Slack, messages are delivered instantly, so there is no need to wait for a response.

Another issue with email is that missing important messages can be very easy. With Slack, messages are organized into channels, so you can always see what’s new and important. Plus, you can set up notifications to ensure you never miss a message.

Finally, email can be quite cluttered and difficult to organize. With Slack, you can easily search through your messages to find what you’re looking for. Plus, you can create different channels for different topics, so everything is always well organized.

Overall, Slack has many advantages over email for business communication. It is more real-time, more organized, more secure, and less cluttered.

Why business-to-business communication is moving to messaging

The way we communicate with each other in a business setting has changed dramatically in recent years. With the rise of internet-based communication tools, businesses increasingly turn to messaging platforms to communicate with customers, clients, and partners. There are several reasons for this shift away from traditional methods like email and phone calls.

Messaging platforms allow for real-time communication. This is essential in today’s fast-paced business world, where decisions need to be made quickly and efficiently. Email is often delayed between messages, leading to lost opportunities or miscommunication. Messaging platforms also allow for more informal communication, which can help build relationships with customers and clients.

Another reason businesses are moving to messaging platforms is that they offer more flexibility in terms of how users can interact with each other. For example, some messaging platforms allow for video conferencing, which can be helpful to for meetings or presentations. Other features like file sharing and group chat make it easy to collaborate on projects or share information quickly and easily.

Overall, messaging platforms offer several advantages over traditional methods like email for business-to-business communication. They allow for real-time communication, more flexible interaction, and easier collaboration.

How can you leverage slack in scale to optimize your customer experience

To optimize your customer experience, you need to be able to leverage Slack in scale. This means that you need to be able to use Slack to communicate with many customers promptly and efficiently.

One of the challenges today that prevents you from using Slack in scale is the need for more automation to direct reactive requests like reporting a bug or adding a new user directly from Slack to your support ticket management tools like Zendesk.

As a CS leader, I repeatedly see my CSMs using "Please reach out to our support team about this matter" on the Slack chat.

Let’s go over a typical manual process flow for this to happen successfully:

1. Ask the customer to submit the ticket

2. Ping the support team to inform them about the upcoming ticket.c

3. If the customer is having an issue with submitting a ticket, copy/paste the issue to file the ticket on behalf of the customer

4. Or worst comes worst, ask one of the support reps to jump on a Slack channel

As you can see, this is very disruptive to the existing processes in place.

The good thing is that new solutions are out there to help you remove this friction with Slack.

You can convert Slack messages into Zendesk, Freshdesk, HubSpot, Salesforce Cases or Intercom tickets with tools like Thena. Thena maps the contact information between Slack and Zendesk, assigning a support agent to the ticket. When the agent replies, their response will be visible under the original message sent on Slack. With Thena, customers can chat on Slack, and agents to respond from Zendesk.

By leveraging Slack in scale, with tools like Thena, you can optimize your customer experience by ensuring that each customer is getting the information they need in a timely and efficient way.

The article was originally published on Linkedin by Gözde Görce.