4 ms·

The issue with the channels are the same than communicating over slack: You customers are feeling like they can ask any question and get an answer in 1 minute,

by polote 7y ago

The issue with the channels are the same than communicating over slack: You customers are feeling like they can ask any question and get an answer in 1 minute, and if you dont answer them straight away then they are unhappy. Definitively not something I recommend

raulk 7y ago
Don’t blame the tool for mismanaged expectations.
- skyyler 7y ago
  If the tool is presented as an instant messenger, people often get upset when responses aren't instant.
  - davnicwil 7y ago
    This is spot on. You should blame the tool for mismanaged expectations if the tool inherently sets the expectations. I'm just trying to imagine ways you could use slack and not set an expectation of having someone online to chat to. Use a bot to resond with "we'll get back to you when we can"? There's no option that doesn't feel like an incredibly frustrating experience for the user.
    - skyyler 7y ago
      No matter how you look at it, if you can't reply in under a few minutes, you shouldn't be presenting your support as a chat. Just use email.
      - fivre 7y ago
        Other support chat tools have solved this for quite some time with a queue and display of estimated waiting time. You may not get an initial response immediately, but once an agent becomes available they're assigned the chat and do communicate synchronously. In comparison, Slack has no way to indicate that an agent is already working with someone else in another channel, nor any good way to assign a specific owner--customer questions are dumped into a channel with X support agents as members, one of whom will hopefully respond.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      What confuses me is that's just not my experience. I've seen and helped run multiple company Slack channels, and none of them regularly had instant responses.
  - cco 7y ago
    Would be an interesting slack integration to enable setting SLAs. Say a message prefaced with (question) starts a timer and then you can track an SLA against that. I would actually love that for open channels.
- capableweb 7y ago
  If you expect to not reply immediately (or "soon"), what's the point of using any chat program instead of email? Either you're fine with short, possibly intense (maybe even urgent) conversations, and chat works well. Or, people want to communicate more async and you can take a day or two to answer. People generally use forums/emails for this.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  No, don't use a instant messaging tool like an answering machine. You set the expectations when you open up slack as a support avenue.
  - bengale 7y ago
    Is this intended for support? We use single channel guests at the moment to collaborate on projects with external companies without any issue. This seems to be geared towards that.
    - EpicEng 7y ago
      I imagine it's intended for any use case in which you want to communicate with people outside your company via slack, but don't want to invite them into your org. I was responding to these comments: >You customers are feeling like they can ask any question and get an answer in 1 minute, and if you dont answer them straight away then they are unhappy. Definitively not something I recommend >Don’t blame the tool for mismanaged expectations.
      - bengale 7y ago
        So am I, "Don’t blame the tool for mismanaged expectations.". This is correct IMHO. Inviting customers in that expect support is setting their expectation that they'll get support in real time. I could think of potentially two of our customers that pay enough for us to consider this. The tool just needs to be used the correct way.
        EpicEng 7y ago
        ...I feel like I meant to reply to the first one. I agree.
- buboard 7y ago
  but the medium is the message
ubercow13 7y ago
I took over a customer who previously only got answers over email in 1 week, and they were useless crappy answers even then. When I started slacking them they got useful answers in 1 minute and the customer was much happier. My point is that even if the customer feels they can only get an answer in 1 week so they don’t expect any more than that, that feels shit especially if the answer sucks.
banana_giraffe 7y ago
It's all about setting expectations. I use this both to let customers in our Slack, and talk to people we're we are the customer. In the later case, the bigger company said "our reps will only reliably respond within these hours, may be delayed by x minutes". Once we know the ground rules, we're all happy. I've taken to doing the same with our customers, so they know not to ask each and every tiny question with a @here ping, or whatever, and that our employees don't live in Slack 24x7.
cwyers 7y ago
I don't think I've experienced either side of this. I've never seen people who otherwise have reasonable expectations of response time go crazy because of Slack. And I have never, ever seen someone with unreasonable expectations of response time behave well just because it's e-mail. Especially since e-mail has been put onto smartphones, I don't really see a whole lot of difference in how people behave based on the size of the text box.
- buboard 7y ago
  the UI s definitely differentiate. Typing indicators, compact display, persistent reply prompt ... these things prime the users over how to use the box.
lmeyerov 7y ago
We combine Slack + Zendesk for this reason. Users can start however they like + we can pick to shift. Enterprise SLAs are generally 1hr for ack anyway, and early stage needs to be customer centric, so works great in these settings.

by polote 7y ago

raulk 7y ago

Don’t blame the tool for mismanaged expectations.

skyyler 7y ago
If the tool is presented as an instant messenger, people often get upset when responses aren't instant.
- davnicwil 7y ago
  This is spot on. You should blame the tool for mismanaged expectations if the tool inherently sets the expectations. I'm just trying to imagine ways you could use slack and not set an expectation of having someone online to chat to. Use a bot to resond with "we'll get back to you when we can"? There's no option that doesn't feel like an incredibly frustrating experience for the user.
  - skyyler 7y ago
    No matter how you look at it, if you can't reply in under a few minutes, you shouldn't be presenting your support as a chat. Just use email.
    - fivre 7y ago
      Other support chat tools have solved this for quite some time with a queue and display of estimated waiting time. You may not get an initial response immediately, but once an agent becomes available they're assigned the chat and do communicate synchronously. In comparison, Slack has no way to indicate that an agent is already working with someone else in another channel, nor any good way to assign a specific owner--customer questions are dumped into a channel with X support agents as members, one of whom will hopefully respond.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    What confuses me is that's just not my experience. I've seen and helped run multiple company Slack channels, and none of them regularly had instant responses.
- cco 7y ago
  Would be an interesting slack integration to enable setting SLAs. Say a message prefaced with (question) starts a timer and then you can track an SLA against that. I would actually love that for open channels.
capableweb 7y ago
If you expect to not reply immediately (or "soon"), what's the point of using any chat program instead of email? Either you're fine with short, possibly intense (maybe even urgent) conversations, and chat works well. Or, people want to communicate more async and you can take a day or two to answer. People generally use forums/emails for this.
EpicEng 7y ago
No, don't use a instant messaging tool like an answering machine. You set the expectations when you open up slack as a support avenue.
- bengale 7y ago
  Is this intended for support? We use single channel guests at the moment to collaborate on projects with external companies without any issue. This seems to be geared towards that.
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    I imagine it's intended for any use case in which you want to communicate with people outside your company via slack, but don't want to invite them into your org. I was responding to these comments: >You customers are feeling like they can ask any question and get an answer in 1 minute, and if you dont answer them straight away then they are unhappy. Definitively not something I recommend >Don’t blame the tool for mismanaged expectations.
    - bengale 7y ago
      So am I, "Don’t blame the tool for mismanaged expectations.". This is correct IMHO. Inviting customers in that expect support is setting their expectation that they'll get support in real time. I could think of potentially two of our customers that pay enough for us to consider this. The tool just needs to be used the correct way.
      - EpicEng 7y ago
        ...I feel like I meant to reply to the first one. I agree.
buboard 7y ago
but the medium is the message

ubercow13 7y ago

I took over a customer who previously only got answers over email in 1 week, and they were useless crappy answers even then. When I started slacking them they got useful answers in 1 minute and the customer was much happier. My point is that even if the customer feels they can only get an answer in 1 week so they don’t expect any more than that, that feels shit especially if the answer sucks.

banana_giraffe 7y ago

It's all about setting expectations. I use this both to let customers in our Slack, and talk to people we're we are the customer. In the later case, the bigger company said "our reps will only reliably respond within these hours, may be delayed by x minutes". Once we know the ground rules, we're all happy. I've taken to doing the same with our customers, so they know not to ask each and every tiny question with a @here ping, or whatever, and that our employees don't live in Slack 24x7.

cwyers 7y ago

I don't think I've experienced either side of this. I've never seen people who otherwise have reasonable expectations of response time go crazy because of Slack. And I have never, ever seen someone with unreasonable expectations of response time behave well just because it's e-mail. Especially since e-mail has been put onto smartphones, I don't really see a whole lot of difference in how people behave based on the size of the text box.

buboard 7y ago
the UI s definitely differentiate. Typing indicators, compact display, persistent reply prompt ... these things prime the users over how to use the box.

lmeyerov 7y ago

We combine Slack + Zendesk for this reason. Users can start however they like + we can pick to shift. Enterprise SLAs are generally 1hr for ack anyway, and early stage needs to be customer centric, so works great in these settings.