Ari Bikes is devoted to building beautiful, custom-made bikes fit for any journey – from landing downhill jumps on rugged mountain terrain to powering across tarmac on busy work commutes. As one of the first brands to build and sell bikes directly to customers, this company based in Lindon, Utah in the USA is committed to innovating in the cycling space.
‘Creating exceptional experiences is our ethos,’ says Chris Washburn, founder and CEO of Ari Bikes. ‘We don’t sell just a bike, we sell an experience, a lifestyle and a way to help a person to achieve their own potential.’
To deliver ultramodern cycling equipment and offer savings through its direct-to-consumer approach, Ari Bikes must prioritise speed across its operations. That’s why Slack’s AI-powered platform for work is the hub that connects the spokes of Ari Bikes’s business.
Washburn founded his custom-made bike business in 2005 as Fezzari Performance Bikes. In 2024, the company refreshed its brand as Ari, which means ‘to exist or to be’ in Japanese. The company is now set to launch eight new bike models, and Slack is playing a critical role in streamlining everything from brand messaging to bike design to manufacturing. And as Ari charts the course for international expansion, Slack remains crucial every step of the way.
Here’s a peek into how Ari Bikes uses Slack to run projects, reduce meetings and increase productivity, saving two hours’ worth of work for each employee every day.
Powering fast and easy project management cycles with Slack
Tyler Bishop, the Product Manager at Ari Bikes, designs the bicycles that you’ll find on the company’s sales floor and website. It’s his job to listen to customer feedback and analyse the market to understand what cyclists want. Next, he uses that information to develop new bikes in collaboration with teammates across engineering, sales and marketing.
Bishop works with all of his colleagues in Slack channels. Channels provide a single space for Ari Bikes’s employees to share files and messages with everyone that they work with. Bishop uses search to easily find and see historical context in channels, and threads to create organised discussions around specific messages.
‘Every bike is a project,’ Bishop says. ‘Slack saves me a bunch of time because it makes it easier to communicate with all of my teams while we’re developing our new bikes. As a product manager, I can’t imagine doing my job without Slack.’
Ryan Nonu, Operations Manager at Ari Bikes, says that Slack canvas is one of his go-to tools. Nonu uses canvases to share photos, videos and design files to inspire his colleagues as they design new products. Referencing this content from a single source helps Nonu’s team to break through creative roadblocks faster.
‘Slack helps us achieve our goals and helps us to help our customers achieve their goals.’
Steering customer success in Slack channels
Kristy Gonzales, a customer success specialist, is committed to helping people find the right bike within their budgets. She’s responsible for setting up each Ari Bikes customer with a custom fit and the bicycle components that they need.
Gonzales uses Slack to collaborate with colleagues across the company and provide quick, personalised assistance to her customers. For example, when a customer places an order with specific bike components, Gonzales looks internally for the parts first, which affects the final cost of a bike. In the past, she’d physically go to each department at the warehouse asking for these parts.
With Slack, Gonzales can quickly check with multiple departments for parts or solutions. This has saved her roughly two hours per day.
‘Slack helps Ari Bikes support our customers from the beginning of their purchasing journey all the way through to the end. Slack helps me save two hours’ worth of work per day.’
Meanwhile, customer support and service departments stay in sync in-channel. Communicating in-channel helps reps to provide customers with accurate real-time information. Keeping customers up to date is key to building trust, long-term customer relationships and brand love among cyclists.
‘Slack helps Ari stand out in the bike industry by providing customers with the information they need in real time,’ Gonzales said. ‘I can easily share updates from the warehouse and our production team and let customers know when their bike will be ready.’
Using Slack huddles and clips to accelerate decision-making
Ari Bikes is headquartered in Utah, USA, but most of its customers order bicycles from across the country and world. That means the company must invest in a peak-performing website and online presence.
Ben Wright, a marketing manager at Ari Bikes, coordinates information across various departments within the company and with customers. His ten-person marketing team supports Ari’s online presence, overseeing everything from design features to systems and software. The team is responsible for everything that a customer sees, and they manage everything that happens as a result of changes to the product.
For example, if a spec changes on one of the bikes, Wright’s team needs to coordinate with colleagues in product, warehousing and customer success. Keeping departments up to date on any changes is vital to keeping things running smoothly. Instead of defaulting to meetings to share information, the team communicates clearly and quickly in Slack.
‘Slack is really vital to everything that I personally do here at Ari Bikes,’ said Wright. ‘It may sound like a small thing, but being able to reach anyone inside my company super fast is vital to my work. Occasionally an urgent request comes in and it’s important that we jump on that right away, and by using Slack, we’re able to contact the appropriate department.’
Wright and his colleagues save time that they would have spent scheduling a meeting by using Slack huddles, which are perfect for informal audio or video meetings or spontaneous working sessions. If teammates aren’t available for a live video call, they can catch up by using Slack clips, short audio and video recordings that can be created and shared within Slack channels and direct messages. Wright can easily connect with anyone in the company to get work done directly in Slack.
‘Rather than trying to schedule a call with a bunch of people, we’re able to jump into a huddle in Slack and problem-solve whenever we need to. That’s made our daily work so much more efficient and effective.’
Blazing the trail of productivity with Slack AI
Teams across Ari Bikes are increasing productivity with Slack AI, a tool that unlocks knowledge across Slack channels and workspaces. By tapping into the secure, trusted data that’s unique to Ari Bikes, Slack’s native AI capabilities offer fast, accurate, search-based answers to employee questions, as well as channel and thread summaries, minimising the time that employees spend digging for information.
‘I love using AI-powered search,’ said Nonu. ‘I can take a basic phrase I remember talking to somebody about and throw that into the search engine. Then AI-powered search provides clear, concise, personalised answers with direct citations to all the relevant Slack messages.’
‘With Slack AI, I can simply find any piece of information and context I’m looking for. It’s one less thing I need to worry about.’
‘I see us as a technology company that happens to create bicycles,’ said Wright. ‘To stay ahead of our competition and create the best bikes possible, we must take into consideration any type of technology that’s leading the way. Slack AI has done that for us.’
Slack is here to help businesses like Ari Bikes to grow without the busywork. From powering fast and easy project management to reducing time-consuming meetings, Slack gives employees more time back in their working day to focus on what they do best.
