Swapfiets is the world’s first bicycle-as-a-service company. For a fixed monthly fee, customers receive a high-quality e-bike, with repairs and maintenance included. The scale-up, perfect for its home base in the Netherlands, has quickly expanded to become one of the leading micromobility providers in Europe. In just 10 years, it is now in seven countries, with 18 warehouses, 45 stores, and revenues of EUR €85.3 million in 2023.
To maintain its edge and keep its commitment to customers, Swapfiets needs all communications to be quick and simple. “Slack is the only platform within the company that everyone has access to, it’s the main tool for internal communications,” said Ana Lovsin, the IT Operations Manager at Swapfiets. Over 1,250 employees at all company locations use Slack.
There are more than 100 public Slack channels at Swapfiets. They include onboarding and project-focused channels as well as companywide communications that everyone is added to by default. And let’s not forget about social channels filled with GIFs and emoji. “Don’t get me started on emoji,” laughed Ana. “They’ve just exploded. Everyone has their own emoji and it’s a fun tool to use and make your own, regardless of whether you work in the office or the warehouse.”
“The Slack workflow is super useful to know how everything actually moves between all the warehouses and how often.”
Building connections
At Swapfiets, every time a shop needs to restock, or a customer needs a repair, store employees contact the relevant warehouse. This used to be siloed via multiple Slack channels, email, phone calls, WhatsApp, and even photos of empty spaces taken by shop employees who hoped that warehouse staff would know what to send. This was messy, time-consuming, prone to errors, and resulted in delays processing requests.
“We have a decentralized company,” said Edwin Euser, a Global Logistics Manager at Swapfiets. “All our regions have a different way of working. However, logistics is about internal communication. We wanted to make sure that requests sent to the warehouses were simple, standardized, and accessible to everyone. Even if you are a logistics operator working part-time, you have Slack access at Swapfiets.” This meant that Slack was the perfect medium for finding a solution.
When Euser got together with the IT department and everyone got on the same page about Slack use, there was no bikeshedding and the team relied on the Workflow Builder to create a more streamlined way of managing logistics communications. Now every request is collected into a form and then sent to a specific Slack channel. With the new workflow, all teams send requests the same way and see every update to their status. There are even standardized emoji. For example, a check mark means the order is complete while a truck means it’s in transit.
This new workflow also enables the team to collect all the data and centralize it in a Google Sheet, creating a logistics database from the stores and making it easier to track all servicing operations. What’s more, with this information, Euser and his team can now plan ahead and even predict requests.
“It’s super useful if we want to know how everything moves between our warehouses and how often,” he summarized. “And it creates a more reliable collaboration that’s transparent and standardized.” After trialing the workflow locally, the team took the training wheels off and implemented it throughout the company, inspiring similar projects.

Simplifying processes and fulfilling regulatory responsibilities
Workflow Builder is also used to streamline and track IT hardware and company vacancies. These workflows came with an additional challenge: they all needed approvals from various people along the way.
Just like with warehouse requests, all the data was sent into a Google Sheet for reference, marking all the different scenarios and approvals associated with it, with timestamp codes from the sheet pulled into the workflow. This helps teams manage requests faster and streamlines the process. And, for IT, it centralizes and tracks all the hardware information.
Workflows are also allowing Swapfiets to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities when it comes to GDPR requests. “We have to comply with EU regulations, so when a customer wants their data deleted, we have a workflow that’s simple and elegant,” said Diego Mesa, an Application Manager at Swapfiets. When a customer service agent fills out a form, the IT team gets notified and deletes the data with a click of a button. This triggers a message back to the agent, who can then notify the customer. Another button closes everything. What used to take a couple of weeks now takes less than two hours.
But there is another particularly useful feature of the workflows that Mesa uses regularly. “I’m a huge fan of the web hooks because you can integrate absolutely anything in the workflows,” he said. “If you have a web hook, you can do anything. For example, we have connected Fountain, our hiring software platform, to Slack through a web hook for visibility of any new staff.”
“We have to comply with EU regulations, so when a customer wants their data deleted, we have a workflow that’s simple and elegant.”
Streamlining IT operations and collaboration
Whenever Swapfiets’ IT team implements new software, it’s much easier to have one central location for all project communications. The team relies on Slack Connect to collaborate with external partners and vendors. “If they have Slack, we can just add them in and we don’t have to use email,” said Lovsin. “Certain tasks, especially project work, are much easier through Slack because we have an instant way of checking the status and getting replies.” In short, it allows the company to move up a gear in projects with outside teams.
Internal projects are also easier because Swapfiets engineers often rely on Slack integrations, such as Azure, for their pipelines and DevOps, while the IT team uses Jira to resolve incidents and tickets more quickly. This works in tandem with a dedicated Slack channel for staff to notify IT of any issues. “We check our email maybe once a day, so if you send an email you’re at the back of the line,” said Mesa.
This way of managing incidents means that IT staff can focus their attention in one place and employees have more clarity about their service tickets. However, it’s not all serious business; the IT support channel and Jira integration have also introduced some whimsy into the process.
“We have emoji to assign tasks to people, to say, ‘We’re taking care of this,’ to close the ticket, and so on,” Mesa explained. “But we also have emoji for setting categories within Jira. At the end of the month, we have a visual representation of where most of our problems originated and which category gave us the most trouble.” Despite the serious nature of running a business at Swapfiets, there is no reason why a monthly Jira sheet can’t be composed of emoji and a little fun.
Taking this lighthearted spirit further, Swapfiets employees are also having fun with Slack bots. A favorite is the lunch bot, which informs catering how many staff plan to be in the office for lunch. Employees can mark their planned attendance and choose specific dishes with emoji, which helps them prepare the right amount of food and prevent waste through unnecessary orders.
It’s not a race, but everyone wins
Slack is helping Swapfiets maintain communication and streamline logistics inside a decentralized business. Whether it’s workflows, integrations, or group projects, employees are better connected while having fun with the tool through emoji, bots, and social channels. It’s simple and enjoyable. Like riding a bike.
Lovsin concluded: “Whenever we can integrate with Slack and staff don’t have to go into another application, it’s a win for everyone. We can set different triggers and notification systems so that, when something happens, we have everyone together working on the same thing. I like it because it’s clean. Instead of going back and forth with emails and calls, we just use Slack. I think that’s pretty cool.”