We moved over from HipChat to Slack a while back and have quite enjoyed the change. While the two products seem similar from the outside, there is something about Slack that is awesome. We use it for everything. It has cut down our internal emails, we have opened channels to deal with our contractors & partners and we have automated a ton of functionality through it.

For example, when a visitor comes to our website and fills in one of the led forms, the information from that form shows up in a few places so that it can be actioned immediately.

To the right is an example of what I’m referring to. Erlich comes to our website, fills in the lead form and sits back for our team to get in touch.

From there, the data from the lead form goes straight into our PipelineDeals account so that we have a record of the lead and can keep track of all interactions involved with it.

PipelineDeals also sends a message to our main email so that we are notified via email of the new lead.
We also have PipelineDeals tied into Zapier which pushes that data into the BD room of our Slack account. This notifies the whole team of the new lead so that anyone outside of the business development team is aware of what is happening on the lead front.

Now the lead is being followed up with by our business development team, the whole PayrollHero team is aware of the new lead (or volume of leads) and if a conversation needs to happen, it will take place within Slack. Simple, but effective use of automation to keep us transparent and on top of our game.

Our others uses of Slack:

– Once a leave request is approved it goes from PayrollHero directly into Slack (via Travel Schedules channel)

– We have city specific channels so that we can talk about what is happening within that city for teammates currently there (Singapore, Manila, Whistler, Vancouver)

– We have contractor channels so that our contracts can interact directly with our team

– There is a reading list channel for shared articles of interest (used to be emailed, now shared there)

– Each department has a channel (BD, marketing, csh, dev, finance, etc)

There is much more happening through our Slack account but this gives you a good idea of how we use it.

How do you use Slack? Any tips for us?  Let us know in the comments below.