{"id":86,"date":"2016-08-12T08:06:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T15:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hengreamaze.wordpress.com\/2016\/08\/12\/why-slack-makes-your-customer-service-better\/"},"modified":"2023-08-31T05:11:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T12:11:51","slug":"why-slack-makes-your-customer-service-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reamaze.com\/blog\/why-slack-makes-your-customer-service-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Slack Makes Your Customer Service Better"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There is clear polarization on the topic of whether customer service should belong in #Slack. Most debate whether teams should be communicating to customers through Slack or not. There are two main camps.<\/p>\n

Camp 1 argues that because all of your team communications already happen in Slack and it makes sense to consolidate customer communications here as well so you\u2019re not using disparate tools. Simply reply to customers directly through Slack when requests are received. It\u2019s faster, simpler, cheaper, and more fluid for your team.<\/p>\n

Camp 2 argues that customer service should never be conducted in Slack because there\u2019s no contextual information on customers. Slack is designed for team communications and should be limited to just teams. Slack also limits your ability to manage multiple customer conversations as well.<\/p>\n

We believe customer service does belong in Slack. However, it isn\u2019t as clear cut as either camp makes it out to be. The popularity of team productivity and communication apps are at an all-time high. The flow of information drives team behavior and each app offers a different experience. It\u2019s not uncommon to see sales teams using Skype (for its global VOIP and enterprise capabilities), product teams using HipChat (for dedicated server capabilities), support teams using Slack (for its integrations and mobile experience). The way we see it, conversations are conversations. We find it most productive when all teams can utilize a single application to manage all conversations between team members, leads, and customers. In that sense, Slack is the clear-cut winner.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the caveat. While Camp 2 is is right about separating internal channels from external channels, they fail to mention the advantage of being able to have relevant internal conversations in the context of external conversations. There\u2019s no need to reply to customers directly from Slack because isn\u2019t the native experience and things can go awfully wrong when you\u2019re using a hacked\/bot solution. Camps 1 and 2 seems to suggest that it\u2019s either all or nothing. We don\u2019t believe that\u2019s ideal especially given how great Slack is.<\/p>\n

If your entire team is already on Slack and relies on Slack for conversation notifications, getting inbound customer request notifications will work wonderfully. When customers write in, a corresponding notification fires to Slack. When your team sees that notification, they can begin an internal conversation about it immediately. No extra monitoring, internal notes, emails, or app-switching needed. Best of all, these internal conversations are tracked within Slack histories. When they\u2019re ready, anyone can click on the conversation link to reply to the customer from the native experience.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can use Slack with your customer service platform of choice effectively. Ideally, your customer service platform will support multi-channel \/ multi-brand and some sort of automation.<\/p>\n