Yesterday Slack said it acquired Rimeto, a four-year-old startup that claims it’s “Reinventing the enterprise directory.” So what does this mean for Slack? For starters, Slack will enable people to work together more seamlessly by connecting them with subject-matter experts via Rimeto’s contextual directory. Traditional enterprise-grade directories are fairly limited, leaving many to struggle to find who they’re looking for in many cases. This begs a question that remains central throughout the conversation on how to improve the user experience: How do you find somebody running a project if you don’t know their name or title?
Slack powered by Rimeto technology will mean that each person within an organization has a profile that represents a well-rounded overview of their skillset along with a snapshot of their experience, affiliations, focus areas, and more. Rimeto’s advanced profile and directory features are set to integrate into Slack directly. Slack’s new-found capabilities could signify the beginning of a new era in CX, where customers reach the experts they need thanks to intuitive directory search.
As more and more remote workers enter the job market, finding reliable data to chart the sentiment of these folks will remain paramount. According to a survey conducted by IaaS provider PubNub, of 1,000 remote workers, 64 percent of remote employees believe companies can be successful long term by working remotely. Some of the study’s other key findings include the fact that 38 percent say their roles now require more collaboration and project management tools to be successful in working remotely long term. Twenty-five percent of respondents said the most distracting form of communication is a result of participating in more scheduled calls and video conferences.
Once Slack’s new directory gets integrated into the platform, it could offer a similar service like the one Zoom via a brand-new partnership with Genesys. The duo uses similar technology via Zoom’s popular Zoom Phone offering to connect customers to subject-matter experts to resolve queries, providing a boost to CX, wait times, etc. With the longevity and plausibility of work-from-home being put to test in real-time, Slack’s beefed up its efforts on all fronts, including its most comprehensive redesign to-date. Last month the collaboration tools developer said it would enable its employees to work from home permanently if they wanted to.
Slack further stated it would enact several new measures to make it easier for employees who want to go into the office once it reopened to social distance. Along with its efforts to replace email, Slack seems to be on a mission to finally diversify the capabilities of its platform that’s face criticism for not being user-friendly enough in the past.
Today’s Slack is lightyears away from where the company used to stand, and it seems to be coming of age, maturing if you will. With ambitions to replace email via its channel-based messaging platform Slack Connect, the company’s done its due diligence to stay relevant during the COVID-19 period. Perhaps it’s the thought that millions of new users now depend on a service they hadn’t even thought of a week before using it.
Now that Slack’s CEO, Stewart Butterfield, is no longer calling out Microsoft Teams, it seems the company has time to focus on innovation and providing some healthy competition for the Teams platform, putting up or shutting as it were.
