Salesforce has replaced its own chat app and deployed Slack to its 80,000 employees after acquiring the collaboration firm.
Employees had previously used Salesforce Chatter, but a Slack director told UC Today that Slack is transforming the way Salesforce operates internally.
Karl Nicholson, Director, EMEA Executive Programs at Slack, explained that since the acquisition, there has been a learning curve for both companies.
He said: “It is pretty amazing to be part of Salesforce, we’ve moved from a smaller organisation to a much larger one, and I think Salesforce has around 80,000 employees currently.
“We’ve had to learn how to work better with Salesforce, but in terms of Slack specifically, it has been rolled out wall-to-wall at Salesforce, so we at Slack are helping to influence how Salesforce does its day-to-day operations.
“Salesforce internally has turned off Chatter, the chat tool which was part of the Salesforce platform, and replaced it with Slack not only for the Salesforce core functions but also for higher business.
“We have seen a reduction in emails at Salesforce specifically, down 46% across the board, and we at Slack don’t do internal emails, so there is a ton of learning going on.
“It’s huge because of the scale of Salesforce; we are marrying up roles internally, so we’ve changed the way that Salesforce operates, which is incredible.”
Slack is not just influencing the company internally, but it has also been integrated into Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
The Slack-First Customer 360 platform brings Slack’s collaboration capabilities together with Salesforce’s suite of CRM tools.
Karl also highlighted to UC Today that despite the acquisition by Salesforce, Slack does not feel locked into the software company’s roadmap and stated that the platform will retain the open feeling it has always had.
He added: “One of the things that I really like about the acquisition, and it was a concern that a lot of people had.
“I know that when I first read the news, I thought, gosh, are we going to be locked down just to be operating within the Salesforce platform?
“But Salesforce has given us the room to still be Slack. They want to learn from us, and we want to learn from them, so they’re not dictating the product roadmap.
“They’re not forcing us to change the way we work; they’re just making it better to work with the Salesforce ecosystem.
“But that’s not to say we’re never going to change working with everybody else, we still want to be that engagement layer, and it’s going to be as open as it always has been.”
Last month, Slack announced upgrades to the Slack Huddles, which include one-click video, multi-person screen sharing, auto-save to channel, and more.
