From Microsoft Teams and Zoom to Slack, enterprise collaboration tools are now some of the most fundamental parts of any business. Slack has initially kickstarted the race and its unmistakable “knock brush” notification sound established a strong presence in offices around the world. Email started occurring at the workplace in the 1980s, proliferating in the 1990s. But the novelty of email has worn off in the 21st century. Email has become:

• Time-consuming (the average American worker spends nearly 6 hours each day on email).
• Overwhelming (average office workers get about 121 emails daily).
• Highly ineffective for partner communications (chances are slim that you’ll get a response to an email after 48 hours).

That is exactly why Slack has become a highly effective medium for not only internal but also external communication. With the new feature Slack Connect, any company can extend a shared channel for up to 20 other organizations. It is especially helpful when communicating with partners, vendors, and customers — interactions that email is poorly suited to facilitate.

In fact, we at Sastrify are regular users of Slack Connect as we utilize Slack not only for our team but also to align with our customers. While we are negotiating smarter deals for companies to secure substantial discounts., Slack Connect certainly manages to make communication much easier, more personal, and more immediate.

7 reasons to choose Slack Connect

Why use Slack Connect? There’s a reason why Slack has become such a prevalent and dominant tool at companies around the world. Slack Connect extends the same efficiency and clarity of internal communication to organizations outside your own. Here are all the top 7 benefits you enjoy when using Slack Connect for communication with partners, vendors, customers, and others.

1. Avoid email traps and hassles

The main problem with email is that all messages are considered the same — an unimportant marketing message from a vendor is weighted the same as a high-priority one from a CEO. It is easy to lose track of what's essentially critical, with all of the junk and low-priority alerts that fill most professionals’ inboxes. Most importantly, group communication is almost impossible as threads are hard and tedious to follow

Slack Connect sidesteps those issues with email, providing an entirely new way for different companies to work in private channels. With a paid Slack plan, users can join a channel or be added to it by another member. Getting the attention of stakeholders has never been easier, whether via public chatting, DMs, and more.

2. Communicate with external contacts

Communication can be spotty when trying to reach someone outside your company. Email messages could either get blocked by spam filters for unknown reasons or get buried in a full inbox.

Because Slack is so prevalent in organizations worldwide, adding a company and inviting external users into a channel is fast and easy with Slack Connect. Each channel has space for conversation about a specific topic, and all members can smoothly reach out to each other. The inherent responsiveness of Slack Connect helps work move faster across multiple organizations.

See below the detailed steps on how to create a Slack Connect channel and start communication outside your organization.

3. Align with multiple departments

So many different departments rely on external communication. You can use Slack Connect for messages outside your organization related to:

• Sales: Slack Connect speeds up the sales cycle, enhancing negotiation and supporting both sides in reaching agreements.
• Support: Slack Connect has become a popular channel for customer support, transforming into an attractive alternative to help centers, email, chatbots, and even live calls.
• Marketing: Slack Connect makes communication with strategic partners, event hosts, and industry publications much easier.
• Customer Success: Slack Connect makes your most important users feel like they are getting the high-touch, responsive assistance that is always desired and expected.

This is just a small sample of the different departments that can benefit from Slack Connect. Start using the tool, and you will find that it can be a handy addition for any team.

4. Connect to other tools

There are several integrations available through Slack Connect to help you create an ecosystem of tools for use with a whole community. For example, Slack integrates with popular software and SaaS products like Zoom, Asana, Google Docs, Google Drive, Jira, and others. These integrations make it even easier for you to communicate and collaborate with others outside your organization, which streamlines your work entirely.

5. Strengthen relationships

Responsiveness matters when you’re reaching out to those who drive your business forward. Again, relying on email means slow communication. But, with Slack Connect, your team can move faster and become more responsive in conversations with partners, prospects, and general colleagues.

It is certainly not that your team cares less or works less hard when communicating via email. Slack Connect allows your team to provide a sense of interest, focus, and even belonging for everyone involved. The platform quickly helps deepen relationships and make your company’s key stakeholders feel valued.

6. Enjoy ultimate security

Slack Connect is specifically designed to help companies avoid phishing schemes and spam attacks that are so common with email. The tool emphasizes user privacy by including enterprise-grade security across all features. Slack Connect also complies with all GDPR- and CCPA-related regulations.

That is peace of mind that email can not provide. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States estimated that people lost $57 million to phishing schemes in one year. Phishing schemes more often target companies over consumers, because that’s where the money is. And 2021 has been a record-setting year for phishing attacks. Communication via Slack Connect can help insulate your business from phishing exposure.

7. Accelerate processes

Email tends to move at a snail’s pace, doesn't it? It is not uncommon for workdays to pass between messages, slowing down any action. The issue is even more exacerbated when trying to contact someone on a different continent as the time difference makes communication almost impossible.

Unlike email, Slack Connect actually accelerates the communication process:

• Deal cycles move 4 times faster for sales teams.
• Customer support teams decrease their ticket backlogs by 64%.
• Business development teams can close acquisitions twice as fast.

Moving faster doesn’t require more work. It just requires better communication tools — like Slack Connect.

How to set up Slack Connect

If you already have Slack installed, getting started with Slack Connect is simple. Here are the steps:

1. Click the “Connections” tab on the left side of your app.
2. Name your Slack Connect channel.
3. Create a description (optional).
4. Decide whether or not to make your channel private.
5. Check the box to “share outside” your organization, then click “Next.”
6. You will be prompted to invite others to join your channel by entering email addresses or names.
7. Click “Done.”

You can also copy the Slack Connect channel link and share it. The instructions above may differ slightly depending on the device you’re using.

Save on Slack for your company

Sastrify team members are Slack power users, just like professionals around the world. We even use Slack Connect to communicate with vendors during negotiations and many more inside or outside organizations.

Do you fear you are overpaying for Slack? We can provide you pricing benchmarks! Let us help you negotiate a new payment cadence and reach a quicker agreement.

Get a free SaaS savings analysis of your spending on Slack and other tools.