A more dynamic way to work
Parkable’s journey began in 2015 as a small team working around the CTO’s kitchen table. The mission was simple: to make parking easy and stress-free. As the company started to grow, the founders knew they needed a dynamic communication tool to support their ambitious plans.
“As Parkable quickly outgrew my kitchen we knew we needed a communication tool that was more dynamic than email — and Slack was just that,” says Brody Nelson, CTO and Co-Founder of Parkable.
Today, Parkable operates across the US, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, providing parking management software for workplaces and commercial properties. And according to Nelson, Slack has played a key role in keeping communications efficient as Parkable scales.
“Slack has been with us since 2015. As we’ve grown from a handful of people to an international operation, it’s stayed at the centre of how we work and scale.”
Slack has been with us since 2015. As we’ve grown from a handful of people to an international operation, it’s stayed at the centre of how we work and scale.
Sales and marketing in sync with Slack and Salesforce
As Parkable expanded, managing sales became increasingly complex. In the past, the team juggled tools like Pipedrive and Zendesk, but communication across teams was slow and visibility was limited. In 2022, Parkable switched to Salesforce Sales Cloud and integrated it with Slack, gaining a clearer view of their sales pipeline.
“Switching to Sales Cloud and integrating it with Slack to give us one tool across all of our functions is really, really beneficial,” says Hamish Cadigan, Sales Operations at Parkable.
Leads from the website now flow directly into a dedicated Slack channel, notifying the sales team immediately so they can act fast and close deals more quickly.
“With Slack, it’s easy for the sales team to see what’s happening without jumping between platforms. We all know that if you can contact a lead within 10 minutes to two hours, the conversion rate is much higher,” says Cadigan.
Switching to Sales Cloud and integrating it with Slack to give us one tool across all of our functions is really, really beneficial.
It’s not just sales that benefits. The marketing team gains visibility into important business activities across the funnel, as well as onboarding and pitches. This real-time insight allows them to jump in to offer support when needed.
“As marketers, we’re most effective when we have visibility across the business. Slack gives us that, so we can be more strategic and proactive,” explains Abi Spence, Global Head of Marketing at Parkable.
And when a deal closes, the whole company celebrates, thanks to the #Wins channel in Slack.
“The Slack Wins channel unites the entire company around each success and alerts the customer support team when a major new customer is onboarded,” says Cadigan.
As marketers, we’re most effective when we have visibility across the business. Slack gives us that, so we can be more strategic and responsive.
Enterprise relationships thrive on Slack Connect
Managing enterprise customers can be tricky, especially in the commercial real estate space, with many stakeholders involved. The back-and-forth of emails and meetings can slow things down, and important details often slip through the cracks.
With Slack Connect, Parkable brings everyone — internal teams and external partners — together in one shared channel. This makes collaboration faster and more transparent.
“We work with big enterprise customers with lots of stakeholders — property managers, security teams, and more. Slack Connect lets us pull everyone together into one task force, which keeps projects moving faster,” says Nelson.
By cutting out long email chains and reducing meetings, Slack Connect ensures that go-lives and project implementations run more smoothly, with fewer hiccups along the way. In fact, the team has saved an hour each week by streamlining communication and cutting down on meetings.
Staying on track with two-week product releases
Parkable runs its entire product release process in Slack, using a dedicated release channel to keep everyone updated on what’s going live and when.
“We release updates every two weeks, and Slack helps us keep up with that fast pace. We don’t use email for product releases at all — everything’s in Slack,” says Nelson.
Having a central place for updates benefits more than just the product team. Sales and marketing — who interact directly with customers — stay in the loop about the latest features and can share updates with customers faster and more accurately.
“Slack breaks down silos between developers and sales, so we can get updates in our customers’ hands faster,” says Cadigan.
Parkable’s engineers also use Slack huddles to problem-solve before a release. It’s a more laid-back way to collaborate than formal meetings.
“My engineers are always jumping on Slack huddles to work through problems. It’s more relaxed than setting up a meeting — it’s like a virtual whiteboard session,” explains Nelson. “We’re a Zoom company and a Google company, but I generally prefer Slack huddles over formal setups.”
Solving issues faster with integrated incident management
Fast incident response is essential to keeping Parkable’s operations running smoothly. When a critical issue arises, Slack brings the incident response team together immediately. With Slack integrated with Jira, new tickets are automatically pulled into the #P1communications channel, where engineers can track, prioritise, and resolve customer issues quickly.
“With incident management centralised in Slack, engineers can triage problems fast, decide if they need to be hotfixed, and get straight to resolving them,” explains Nelson.
Parkable also monitors hundreds of connected access gates globally. If one goes down, Slack sends an alert to the team for immediate action.
“If a gate goes down, Slack tells us straight away, so we can start fixing it faster,” says Nelson.
This rapid incident response allows Parkable to address issues quickly to reduce any impact on customers, keeping operations smooth and efficient.
Staying connected to customer feedback
Customer feedback is vital to Parkable’s mission of making parking stress-free, and Slack helps the team stay connected to users in real time. Thanks to an integration with Delighted, Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and customer comments are automatically sent to a Slack channel, giving the team instant access to valuable insights.
“We get feedback all the time through Slack. Whether it’s NPS or detailed comments, I’m always in touch with what customers are thinking,” says Nelson.
This instant visibility means Parkable can respond to feedback faster, solve issues before they escalate, and ultimately keep parking stress-free for everyone.
