How Slack improved retention by competing with Zoom & Google Meets with a simple framework?

Every product faces a challenging phase in improving retention when the collaboration market is slowly becoming the red ocean.

When I first used Slack which is our internal messaging tool, I was quickly amazed at its stickiness factor.

All our comm’s happen at this one central place and most importantly doc sharing, Minutes of meetings, and Tasks were captured simultaneously in this single pivotal tool.

Everything was smooth and our engagement on the product was multiple times a day sometimes more than WhatsApp or any other social media app during the workdays.

Imagine If the slack product team was satisfied with these engagement metrics, no innovation would have been born.

"Huddle" is one of the most unique features and has given slack an edge in improving product engagement.

How Slack incrementally came out with this feature?

By applying Jobs to be done Framework.

What is Jobs to be Done framework?

Even though this topic needs a lot of series to write about, let me put it in a nutshell.

Every user hires a product to perform a certain job. For example -After landing at the airport, my job is to travel to my destination - I complete this job by assessing the below options

Bus/Train/Rental Cab/Uber/Ola/Bla Bla car

So, picking commute as a job there are multiple products that fall under the choices for the user to pick based on multiple attributes ( If convenience & privacy -book cab, cost-savvy - Bus)

By listing the below parameters, one would be able to shape and build the product features accordingly to improve activation & engagement.

Who is the User Persona?

What is the primary Job? What are the secondary jobs?

What are the circumstances that guide during the job completion? (Factors affecting decision-making)

How is the Job being performed currently?

What are the obstacles in carrying out the Job? (Painpoints)

Jobs to be done for Slack Users:

Now jumping back to the scenario for slack.

While everything was exchanged with the work chat’s in private DM and channels, still we were sharing Zoom or GMeet links to jump from the tool and get on a quick video or audio call to get the conversations going as things were literally remote during 2021.

We were literally jumping from slack to an external tool like Zoom.

The Job was clearly to collaborate on real-time with my teammates if our chats are not solving the conversation. As we have already experienced Zoom call Or Gmeet , anyone would expect the experience should be better than what currently is.

Taking the First Step towards Colloboration :

Slack improvised instant “ Calls “as what one can do in Microsoft “Team” during 2017

Integrated with Zoom for direct call from Slack in 2019?

But still, the integration with Zoom was driving the user from the current ecosystem to an external product for completing the “Job” of collaboration.

Also, Instant call is still not solving the experience of minor group meetings, and informal conversations without having to call with prior notification.

"Huddle" released in 2021

Even though “ huddle” is actually a slightly upgraded version of an Instant call, one has a different experience due to the instant inter-group audio collaboration.

The latest huddle improvised version has everyone in video & Multiple person screen sharing.

So, the Jobs to do framework is not only applied at the earlier stage or one-time done and throw-away exercise, rather it's a constant ritual one has to carry out to capture user’s needs.

If we don’t, competitors will carry out the exercise and capture the market.

Feel free to share your thoughts if you come across any product, or feature born out of undergoing a Jobs to do research.