People seem to, for the most part, be okay with putting information into different channels.

But within the channels, I find the conversations get pretty unwieldy pretty quickly.

I think this is mostly because so few people actually post replies to existing threads as opposed to replying in whole new posts.
When our team first started using Slack, I did quite a few posts asking people to reply in threads, but somehow the message just doesn’t seem to get out, or sink in with everyone.

I wish Slack could make threads more prominent, or intuitive, somehow!

Japanoscope

It is a little something I have learned, therefore, to always check my accounts for ongoing subscriptions that I do not need anymore.

This aside, what I didn’t like about Slack, (aside from the name and its connotation that should have nothing to do with good business), is the fact that privacy is not an issue with them.

NetLawMan

However, what I hate about Slack is when you are chatting with one person but you cannot have another person (in the same organization) in for commenting even if you tag them.

You have to start another thread to include both the employees and rewrite your thought.

So what it should do is, it should automatically open a new chat window with the same last line conversation and invite all who have been tagged even from the personal chat session.

Kraneil SEO Solutions

Don’t get me wrong, I like Slack a lot and find it useful for some things, but it has created a sense of urgency around every little request coworkers make, including my own.

Before Slack, an email could be ignored for at least an hour or two while the person receiving the message focused on the task at hand.

But these days, everyone expects a response to their Slack message right away, and it can really derail your focus and productivity.

My advice is setting up clear standards within your company for what types of requests should be made over Slack, and which should be left for email.

The Dog Tale

The big downside with this ease and instant communication is that Slack can be hugely disruptive to people’s day to day work and business operations.

This ease, coupled with the number of non-work-related channels and conversations that can appear from time to time, means you can spend more time chatting, going back on forward on conversations then completing the objectives for the day.

We decided early on in our growth that with each new hire, we deliver in-depth training on how to use the platform efficiently and that our team think before they write so that they are specific and precise with their communications.

Moreover, because it’s not possible to talk over video all the time, text chat can also get misinterpreted. By taking that extra time and consideration for each other, we are more respectful of everyone’s objectives and that we always deliver what is needed to help our customers succeed.

Uscreen

• Their cheesy little icons like their mascot and the hand wave.
• Every time I log into a new channel, it goes through the same tired old ‘Welcome to slack’ stupidity. How easy would it be to detect that I’ve seen it 20 times and I don’t want to see it again?
• I have to re-enter a username and password for each slack channel I join.
• It doesn’t interface well with LastPass and causes me to manually enter every new channel into LastPass.
• Free channels delete your messages after 10k.
• Their search sucks, so it’s hard to find important things.
• Every channel gets cluttered up with junk, making it useless.
• Once you have more than one channel, it becomes a big pain to login to all the different channels and checks them.
• It’s really not much better than a Google hangout. In fact, it’s worse because of all the different user names/passwords you have to keep track of/keep synced, the poor search capabilities, and the loss of information for free channels.

John Adams IT

Although all platforms have to make some revenue, of course, the storage for the free tier is just 10,000 texts.

When you have a squad of five or higher, it’s going to happen in no time.

History will not be preserved, and all previous communications will be stored or erased.

The other day, I wanted to see some of the first messages we sent to Slack about a startup that I’m working with, and it was all gone.

Messages are the most irritating part about this experience.

When you are out of room, attempt to upload, you will get pinged back about the room cap being reached.

This is frustrating, so you would certainly be distracted by the message and leave a good red message icon on your Slack app.

East Insurance Group

There is not much thought given to your time and that you may be busy at the moment.

If you don’t reply, they will notify you until you finally do.

It’s annoying to find out that when you log into Slack, you’ve been alerted a hundred times just because you were doing something else at the moment.

Another thing is when you have a large work environment on Slack it’s getting hard to keep up with all the rooms, messages and channels. As the messages whizz by, I get nervous not to miss anything important.

Don’t get me wrong; Slack is a great communicator if you use it correctly, although there is a lot of potential for misuse.

Brand24

The big negative of Slack is the interruption as It sets an expectation of immediate answers that you don’t have with email.

This can be really distractive, but it can be avoided if you turn off the notifications during your focus time.

Prodigi

One of the primary selling points used to convert free Slack users to paid subscribers is unlimited search.

But in reality, the search function is very bad and both the UI and the underlying code need a major overhaul.

I can’t think of a single time using it, where I am able to find what I am looking for.

Are you finding what you need?

With Slack, it is rare.

You have to just keep trying different searches and hope you can get what you need, but oftentimes, you just can’t.

Postali

• It has a boring, dull appearance that a classic chatroom had.
• All notifications are treated with the same urgency.
• Slack doesn’t decrease the number of platforms you use for communication and information transfer.

WebSpero Solutions

Slack is also pretty non-hierarchical in its implementation, and more hierarchically-organized or politically-intense firms or departments may show a strong dislike of it.

Lastly, one academic organization I know evaluated slack: they needed to retain all their data but have no resources to upgrade to the paid versions (which you need to do after 10,000 messages to search previous ones!) Now, a Slack competitor offers free membership for academic organizations, and they switched to that rival.

Thrive Agency