Should You Be Using Slack for Your Business?

Of all the tools that pretty much any business can make use of, this is one of the most useful. All businesses need an efficient way to communicate and send information internally, which is why messaging software like Slack can change the way you do business every day.

Not only will Slack nearly eliminate the need for email, but it also makes all of your communication much easier while saving your team a lot of time.

Online Messaging Software for Productivity

So, what is it? Slack is online messaging software that is much more than a simple instant messaging app. It is a high-powered piece of software that optimizes communication and collaboration for businesses, or any group that needs to get serious work done, for that matter.

If you have ever used Skype or similar services, then you have an idea of how it works; however, Slack is more like Skype on steroids. There are some types of businesses who should absolutely be using this app, such as businesses with remote employees, or have employees who travel a great deal, or even just businesses with a lot of employees.

Just about any business can benefit from using Slack, though, because it’s one of the best solutions out there right now that keeps your whole team connected, no matter where they are or what they’re working on. Even businesses that have very few employees can get a ton of value out of this app.

Slack Can Almost Replace Email

Every business of course needs to use email for certain purposes, but you can greatly cut down on how much you use email with Slack–it’s really that good.

One of the most prominent features of Slack is the ability to transmit any kind of messages and information way more quickly and easily than email, including images, videos, and documents. Without opening another window for your email, you can drag and drop anything you want directly into the Slack app, instead of opening your email, typing in the email address, composing the message, adding attachments, and then finally sending it to the recipient.

On top of that, you’ll get responses back a lot faster, as well. This is because everybody on your team sees everything immediately from the app, and they, in turn, can send their responses more quickly.

Cutting down on the number of emails your team is sending to one another means one less thing for which you’ll be receiving notifications, and we can all probably agree that fewer notifications during the work day would be a welcome change. You can simply rely on your notifications from Slack to stay in touch with what’s going on all the time.

Stop Using Group Text Messages

The Slack software is designed for groups to collaborate. In fact, the whole point of the app is to optimize the communication and transmission of all types of information within groups. Text message? Not so much.

Text messaging is just much better-suited for one-on-one conversations between people, and anyway, there are issues that arise occasionally when people text each other for which you don’t have the time to address when you’re trying to run a business.

Using Slack eliminates the problems that commonly come up with text messaging, and honestly, when a solution like Slack exists, using text messaging for work is pretty outdated. When communicating through a group text, people sometimes can’t figure out or are unable to leave the group; there are frequently incompatibility issues between iOS and Android; and members of the group text may not even be able to see the group’s other responses.

Slack just works far better for group messaging because it was made for this specific purpose. Users can turn notifications on or off with one click, everybody can always see other users’ responses, and they can easily leave the group any time they want to.

Some Other Really Cool Slack Features

Slack is a full-service messaging app, and the features you’ll find in your control panel are far from basic. Your “workspace”, as they call it (you can have multiple workspaces in the same account, by the way), has all of the different functions contained in one app.

The first feature you’ll notice is the ability to create “channels” for different topics, discussions, departments, etc. In each channel, you can invite only the people that should be in that subgroup, and then if you just need to address one person, you can send direct messages, as well. If you see something come through in a channel that you need remember, or something important, then you can mark that item in another folder for later reference.

As for notifications, these can be turned on or muted for each channel, or you can turn all notifications on or off at the same time. You can also schedule this in the app to automate it.

Another great feature it has is that you can set up integrations to work with Slack, so that updates from other apps such as Zendesk will feed to its own channel in real time.

Most importantly, and one of the most helpful things about Slack, is that in addition to messages, you can send images, videos, documents, or any kind of attachment quickly and easily, all within the same platform.

How Any Business Can Benefit from Slack

If this sounds like something your business could use, it can’t hurt to check it out, and the best part is that the basic version is completely free! So, there is zero cost unless you need to upgrade your plan with them.

You’ll find that getting messages from your team and responding is way easier with Slack because it consolidates email (replacing email), text, calls, and video chat into one solution.

Your team can stay in contact no matter where they go and use the app in the office on a PC, or out in the field with the mobile app for iOS and Android. You will be able to archive all of your conversations, documents, and other information in one central place by using this app.

Give Slack a shot, and see how much time and hassle you can save with this high-functioning messaging software. To test it out or see the other features available, visit them at Slack.com.