How to share Slack channels between multiple teams

TL;DR: Smooz allows you to create shared channels across Slack teams. It now allows up to 6 teams in the same shared channel! Also, get early access to create community channels with 100+ teams.

Slack is a great tool, beloved by its users, offering an elegant chat experience enriched with integrations of external tools and business processes. Typically, organisations that use Slack stop almost entirely to use email for internal communication. However, several use cases involve external communication, such as customer support and collaboration with partners and clients.

For customer support, a few awesome tools exist, such as Talkus to chat with your website visitors directly from Slack (including calls management via Aircall and an Algolia-powered FAQ!), a Front integration, or MailClark to manage emails.

For collaboration with third parties, most solutions felt unsatisfactory. Slack offers paying teams the possibility to invite single-channel guests, but it is convenient only for freelancers. Things tend to break down when slightly larger operations are involved, for example if an agency needs to connect with a client to manage a project. It is a hassle to keep track of who should be invited, to send out emails, and to add yet-another-Slack-team.

Earlier this year, I released Smooz, a Slack app allowing you to collaborate with your business partners, such as clients, agencies, and so on, through shared channels. It works as a “middlemen” between the teams, copying text, files, and even usernames and profile pictures.

Now, I am pleased to announce a new version of Smooz, with a number of improvements!

What’s new?

• You can open several channels between two teams. A typical use case is a large agency who has several ongoing projects with a client. Another one is a collaboration that involves a public channel with the teams, and a private channel for management only.
• You can invite up to 6 teams in a given shared channel. This is perfect for complex collaborations involving three teams and more, because otherwise there would be no way to manage it without creating a new dedicated Slack team.
• The One-click Connect process has been improved: you can now invite a team to connect with you, or join an existing channel, just by entering their email. Smooz sends them an email, and they just have to click on the link to get started
• Pricing is now a flat, per-channel fee. It starts at 6€/month/channel, and is discounted at 4€/month/channel above. This erases the main drawback of the previous pricing, a large “jump” in cost when transitioning between plans. To compensate, the free plan is reduced to a one-month free trial. I believe the pricing is now cheaper, more flexible, more fair.
• You can now configure which channel in your team, is used to connect to the shared channel. This is useful when you have historical conversation and content you prefer not to loose.
• I am happy to introduce also Community channels (coming soon), which will be shared channels with 100+ teams created around an existing community, a network, a geographical area, an open-source framework, and so on. It will be useful to link alumni of a bootcamp program, portfolio startups of a local accelerator, or as a customer success tool. Can you imagine if 100+ Slack teams had a #your_company_community channel? Get in touch here to get an early access.

What does that change for me?

If you are a paying customer of Smooz

You have immediately access to the new functions of Smooz. You can create new channels, and invite additional teams in existing ones, via your dashboard.

You are guaranteed to pay less or same as your previous monthly cost at the time of the transition. You can directly manage the price you pay by deactivating channels you don’t use, even temporarily (per-day pricing), giving you complete control over your billings.

If you are a free user of Smooz

Your free plan is extended until the end of the year, even if you own a shared channel with another team. However, the new features (customize channels, inviting new teams) are restricted, and you will need to subscribe (for only 6€/month) to unlock them. The same applies if you want to create another shared channel or invite someone using one-click Connect. In 2017, if you own a shared channel you will be automatically upgraded, with a one-month free trial like a new user.

If you want to try Smooz, but you are not sure

When you click Add to Slack on the homepage, a shared channel is opened with the “Smooz support” team. This means that you can test the new features for free, while having a conversation with a super-nice person (me ^^). When you decide to create a shared channel with another team, a one-month, no-credit-card free trial will let you test if it helps you in your daily workflow.

Talk to you soon!

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