Streamlining operations as a publicly traded company
Domain, a leading Australian property marketplace made up of a portfolio of brands, inspires confidence in life’s property decisions, whether it’s buying, selling, leasing or renting.
In 2017, Domain achieved a significant milestone when it was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. It was around this exciting time that the growing company realised it needed to change how its team worked and collaborated.
Recognising the need to streamline its sometimes fragmented communication and systems, Domain transitioned to Slack.
Making work more collaborative and efficient in Slack
The driving force behind Domain’s success is its dedicated teams, including its aptly named Super Friendly IT Team. As Domain’s tech enablers, they’re always finding new ways to make work easier, more secure and more efficient.
Before Slack, communication was a bit all over the place, spread across emails and a variety of platforms. The IT team saw an opportunity to bring everyone together in Slack.
Gareth Bernie, Operations Support Manager at Domain, leads the “Super Friendly’s”, the first team at Domain to experience just how much more productive working on Slack can be.
“The IT team lives in Slack. We can communicate in a single place and quickly jump on a huddle to problem solve without leaving Slack,” says Bernie.
As other teams saw the benefits of organising communication in Slack channels, it quickly expanded to the entire organisation. Now, with Slack as the central hub, all departments can collaborate seamlessly.
“Today, everyone from sales to marketing uses Slack for everything from team announcements to questions to the executive leadership team, fostering free and open collaboration,” says Bernie.
Cutting resolution times by 84% with emoji-triggered workflows
The IT support process at Domain used to drag both the employee requesting help and the IT team resolving issues out of their flow of work. Requests bounced between platforms like Jira and Okta, with lots of email back-and-forth. This was inefficient and required context-switching, resulting in delayed responses and occasionally frustrated employees.
That’s until Domain’s Super Friendly IT Team transformed this process with, of all things, emojis.
Slack’s emoji-triggered workflows and integrations have made support faster and easier for everyone. A simple emoji triggers an automated workflow that guides employees to resolve their requests, directs them to the right channel, or seeks manager approvals. For example, when an employee requests Salesforce access, a ‘Salesforce cloud’ emoji automatically sets the process in motion.
Moving support out of emails and into Slack has allowed the IT team to have quick, two-way conversations to solve issues faster. And the results are impressive.
Previously, requests took an average of 36.68 minutes to resolve, and incidents took 21.58 minutes. With support now in Slack, the IT team has achieved an average of just 5.84 minutes for requests and 4.22 minutes for incidents. That’s an 84% reduction in time for requests and an 80% reduction for incidents.
“Slack’s emoji workflows and integrations have streamlined our processes, reduced response times and improved satisfaction rates. We’re now 6x faster at handling requests,” says Bernie.
Everyone at Domain is reaping the benefits of faster support from emoji-triggered Slack workflows. In just over 4 months, the team resolved 3,020 tickets and received 536 user reviews with an average of 5 stars.
Slack's emoji workflows and integrations have streamlined our processes, reduced response times and improved satisfaction rates. We're now 6x faster at handling requests.
Freeing up time for high-value work with Slack
Before introducing Slack automations, senior IT team members at Domain spent too much time on routine support tasks. Team manager Bernie often found himself managing nearly half of all incoming requests, leaving little room for more strategic or high-value work.
“If we received 2000 requests, I’d have to close 1000 of them. Now, the rest of the team handles all these requests in Slack, so I can work on optimising our systems.”
With processes and knowledge stored and automated in Slack, junior team members are now empowered to handle routine support tasks. This shift allows senior team members to focus on more complex work like Okta integrations and system improvements.
“Slack has helped us find a more efficient division of labour. The entire team, from juniors to managers, has become more autonomous and productive,” says Bernie.
Slack has helped us find a more efficient division of labour. The entire team, from juniors to managers, has become more autonomous and productive.
Fast and easy access to information on Slack Canvases
Before Domain began working on Slack, finding important internal information was a hassle, with resources scattered across multiple systems.
Slack Canvas centralises everything. Now, all relevant information is attached to the right channel, making it easy to find.
“Slack Canvases acts as a mini intranet for quick access to important information. It’s useful for linking to policies, documents, and help resources, right in Slack where employees are working,” says Bernie.
This has cut down the need to navigate to multiple systems and reduced time-wasting context-switching. Everything is in Slack for searchability and fast access.
