How Slack is enabling collaborations across the board for e-commerce company Meesho

From resolving issues faster and enabling seamless virtual collaborations, to successfully onboarding new staff and creating a strong team culture, Slack has delivered significant benefits to Meesho.

Prior to the pandemic, the Bangalore-headquartered company’s 1,200 employees used Google Meet, WhatsApp, email and in-person meetings to connect, communicate and collaborate. But when Covid-19 hit and they were forced to work remotely, the company was looking out for diverse digital tools that would boost productivity. There were limitations with different channels, important messages were being missed and work-life balance was becoming difficult to achieve.

There are already 20 million MSMEs relying on Meesho to monetise their social media accounts — and the company is aiming to empower 100 million of these businesses by 2022. With the company scaling fast, and having raised US$570 million from high-profile investors, employees have been chasing bold and ambitious goals by leveraging synergies across the board. This was enabled through the introduction of a digital HQ — a unified, integrated platform to access all workplace apps, information and files.

To enable employees to access all the important virtual assets needed to do their jobs successfully from anywhere, Meesho chose to adopt Slack. The decision was positively welcomed across the company as it created an open workplace that encouraged knowledge sharing and faster decision making.

“Slack is now Meesho’s digital HQ. Each day is made more productive with the use of Slack channels and integrations,” said Nikita Dawda, Chief of Staff to the CEO at Meesho.

Envisioning beautiful experiences for customers

Since April 2021, Slack has had a positive impact on Meesho’s teams, enabling them to seamlessly integrate new and existing tools into their workflows, including project management platforms like Jira and Asana, and collaborative UX design tool Figma. It has also allowed employees to connect through Slack channels to share messages and files, make decisions and move projects forward.

Even while working remotely, teams have been able to build the best possible experience for their sellers by collaborating effectively on feedback-driven products. Meesho’s teams rely on internal and external feedback to identify the most important problem statements and collectively work towards building the right solutions.

From ideation to iteration and launch, every feature takes shape on a dedicated Slack channel with internal feedback from cross-departmental stakeholders. As Meesho’s employees work across time zones, collaboration on Slack is the key to successfully launching new features.

“Slack empowers teams across the board to come together on one platform and still use the tools they rely on every day,” said Shikhar Saxena, Group Product Manager at Meesho.

External feedback from customers is even more significant once a new feature is introduced. Previously, customer feedback would be shared in a weekly company-wide email, which would often get lost in transit and critical issues would take longer to be resolved.

“Distribution of information and fixing issues were a little difficult and time consuming. With Slack channels, Meesho has drastically decreased the time assigned to finding a solution for a customer’s problem,” said Saxena.

“Providing world-class customer service is about resolving queries in the fastest possible manner.”

Welcoming new employees in a remote environment

Slack has also played a critical role in onboarding new employees, especially at a time when the majority of hires started their new roles from home due to the pandemic. This included welcoming new employees and helping them get up to speed on key projects.

“As we worked remotely the whole of last year, it became imperative to ensure employees feel like they’re part of the company and get a strong sense of our culture,” said Ashish Kumar Singh, Meesho’s Chief HR Officer.

Right from the beginning, the new employees are invited to all relevant Slack channels — from the larger public announcement ones to team-specific go-tos.

“Every time we have a new joinee, Slack is crucial for icebreakers, context setting, and day-to-day workflows,” said Saxena.

Internally, Slack is also used in the lead up to an employee’s first day, including coordinating equipment, granting administrative access and administering ID cards. Employees can use the custom MeeBot that combines Slack and artificial intelligence for common HR questions and get an immediate response.

“From a HR management perspective, it’s much smoother,” said Singh.

Creating a culture that empowers employees to do their best

Before the pandemic, Meesho’s in-office employee engagement activities were a huge culture driver. Keeping these up became difficult as people transitioned to remote and hybrid work.

“In the absence of having the larger employee base present in the office, one of the key things we were solving for was building and enhancing our unique culture,” said Singh.

With the implementation of Slack, Meesho was able to foster closer connections between employees. There are currently plenty of channels for team bonding, light-hearted conversations, and other group activities — all of which help boost employee morale and engagement.

Trust and transparency is also at the heart of the company’s culture. With an aim to maintain a culture of transparency from top to bottom, Meesho has a channel for employees to openly ask questions and provide feedback directly to the company’s founders and leaders. They can also get in touch via direct messages. With Slack, all voices are able to reach the highest levels of the company.

Digital HQ — One place to get things done

Within months of adopting Slack as its digital HQ, Meesho was able to fundamentally change its workflows and adapt to a new remote work environment. This eventually allowed teams to collaborate more effectively, address customer issues faster and strengthen efficiencies.

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