How @Webflow Saves Time with Slackbot

I'm Gillian Bruce, and we are here today to talk about Slackbot, which has been completely rebuilt for the AI Era. To do that, I am joined by Adrian of webflow. Welcome, Adrian.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Well, it's wonderful to have you here. Now, before we get into all of the Slackbot goodness, I'd love to just hear a little bit more about who you are, your role, and what webflow does.

Absolutely. So my name is Adriana Rosenkranz. I've been at webflow about a year. I. I run our sales, our marketing, our success and support organizations. And what we do is we are a platform for modern marketers to help them design, ship, and grow their web experiences. And so couldn't be more excited to talk a little bit about Slackbot today.

Okay. Well, we're gonna talk a lot about Slackbot, so. And webflow is a great product. I know a lot of our teams at Salesforce use it, so thank you for building something so good.

Absolutely.

You're part of a great team. But let's dig into Slackbot a little bit. So I know it's brand new for you guys, the new enhanced AI agent version of sl. Tell me a little bit about, just in general, how your company uses Slack to kind of set the stage.

You know, one of the things that I feel very fortunate about is that webflow uses Slack in a way that it's basically the nervous system. Everyone is talking to each other, collaborating. We're a remote first company. We have been for a long time, and that really results in the need to have some kind of digital reality for everyone to work together and collaborate. And so we are also fortunate to just have such great adoption that makes it easier for everyone to feel connected. And there's so many different channels. I can't even explain how many. And it's really part of our entire way of working to the point that even I have sales kickoff coming up and company kickoff, and I have a slide that is just covering different things that happened in Slack over the year.

Well, it's probably a pretty big slide. How are you gonna cram that all in one slide?

I know sometimes it's like, who used the eyes emoji the most?

Oh, what's your favorite react Chi?

It's a good question. I honestly just stick to the eyes.

The eyes. That's good. Someone's watching you.

Yes, exactly.

I'm a big. I'm the. Thank you. The Ty. That looks like the beanie baby logo with the heart.

That's a Great one.

Yeah. Like, thank you, I appreciate you. And also Beanie babies, because why not? Okay, let's talk about Slackbot, though. So Slackbot really has been reimagined in this AI era to be your personal AI assistant for work, your AI agent for work. In fact, talk to us a little bit about your first experiences with Slackbot.

Well, I think it's teaching me things that I didn't know about myself is what I'd start with. So one of the things that's really interesting, and I think we've all played around with AI asking questions of tell me what you see and tell me what are my blind spots. And the thing that's really unique though, is all of my work is happening, especially because with webflow, we do so much in Slack. We have our salesforce Slack account channels. So our customer comms are in Slack, our partner and agency comms are in Slack. So we have our community working in Slack as well. And so so much of the work is happening there. And so it becomes something where you really want to understand what are the trends, what do I need to know about? And what I found actually that's really, really interesting with Slackbot is that it gives me something that's a little bit easier. So I think whether you're using any of the large language models, the one thing you have to tell it to give it context, whereas Slackbot's already in the context of where we're working. And that makes it a lot easier to just be able to ask simple questions and not have to overthink and it can start to flag things. And so that's really been my first couple experiences with Slackpot and why I think it's super unique because it has all the context of where we're working and the conversations. I always say the most valuable thing you can possibly have is customer conversations. That's the best data. Then the next best piece of data is also alongside that, how they use your product. All the stuff that tries to make that happen for us, all the communications with our teams, with our customers, with our partners is happening through Slack. And so how do we better use that?

I mean, context is key. You nailed it. And what better context than you said all the conversations? And it's not even just limited to conversations, it's whatever other systems you've also connected to with Slack. Right. So if you've connected your Gmail or Google Calendar, Slackbot also has access to all of those. So tell me about a prompt that you use with Slackbot that has impressed.

You so One of the things that I started with right away when I got into the role was building a chief of staff. And I wanted to create an agenda. Chief of staff. So I built it over time. And when Slackbot was turned on for us, I thought to myself, well, I wonder how I can extend that same concept into Slackbot and into Slack. And so actually, my favorite prompt, and I know we were talking about it earlier, you. I literally have a prompt that has it going through all the Salesforce account channels. So one of the hardest things is there's so much happening with all of our customers all the time. And there's things that our teams are doing, there's feedback they're sending us. And so every morning I run it to just quickly understand what are flags I should be aware of, what are channels I should hop into, what are things that I should be aware of that I don't really need to jump into. And actually, the most useful one is tell me where nothing's happening, but something should be happening. And I think the absence of any conversation or any dialogue or any documents created actually is more important. So if there's any vacuums, flag that to me.

Okay, so you run that every morning?

Every morning.

And I mean, how fast do you get the results?

Yeah, it's pretty shocking. Like, most of the time I was like, oh, this is probably going to take like 10 minutes. And it doesn't. It takes probably two minutes max when it's really going, and most of the time it's under two minutes. So basically, when I hit send, I do something for a minute or two, and then I go back, it's already there.

And it gives you all the information, you know, that you have to deal with to start the day.

Right. And it links to where to go to. So if there's something I want to be able to do, I just can click straight into it and it takes me straight to the conversation.

And so if pre this prompt, pre this experience, how much time would you say you'd spend kind of trying to gather all that information to inform your day?

It's a great question. I'd say that I couldn't. First of all, in some ways, the way it would work is I'd look at dashboards or I'd look at all the deals that were working that are in sales or our customers that are renewing. And so I try to go and look through all these things, but if I were to do it manually, it probably would have taken an hour or two. And now it takes, like, less than two Minutes.

Well, and there's a chance you would have missed something, right? Or how do you identify those channels where nothing is going on?

That's the hardest part. I actually didn't have a way to identify what channels have nothing going on unless I thought of it.

That's so interesting. I think that's a prompt. Now I'm going to start looking at like what channels are quiet that I need to know about. Why isn't anything happening there. I like that.

Yeah.

We were playing a little bit with prompts earlier today. What's one of the most unusual, most interesting prompts that you had Slackbot run?

Well, I asked it. If I asked it based on everything Slackbot knows about me and every conversation over the last year, what animal would I be? And what was funny is Slackpoint didn't give me an answer like, you are this animal. It actually said that I give off sheepdog energy.

I love that.

And I was trying to figure out and then luckily, thanks to Slack, it gave me an explanation. It basically said, you are hurting people and making sure they're getting to where they need to go. You have high energy, you're very responsive and very attentive. And so it made me chuckle. But it also, I think it's a really good reflection point. It's like having a journal entry written for you.

Totally. I like that. Sheepdog energy. I'm getting it, I'm getting it. I got golden retriever energy. I don't know what that says about me, but that's awesome. That's great. So let's talk a little bit about this is the personal use that you've gotten out of Slackbot. You guys have only had it for a little bit amount of time. How do you see Slackbot really playing into how your organization functions and maybe some potential efficiencies, Time savings. What are you excited to see what Slackbot can do for your organization?

Yeah. So one thing that I think whois is a topic for me as a leader is I want to make sure that everyone in the organization always knows where they stand within the organization. I think we all have been through performance reviews or we've been through check ins where there's a surprise. And I think one of the things that's interesting about that is that now we have a place where a lot of that work's happening and it's just really problematic to try to pull it. And so I actually see it as like a really amazing tool to quickly be able to say, look at the last three months. Tell me what are the best projects I've been working on, even whatever framework you have in terms of how you want to check in with a manager. And so as I think about my team, I'm really excited to be able to have them use this to better have coaching conversations, to have discussions around how they can grow their career, where they are, where they're not. And so that's one of the ways that I'm really excited that I think applies to every single role of what it might look like to be able to just give them the ability to just have more clarity.

Well, it's like transparency, right? It's like if Slackbot sees it, then that's probably what you're seeing and the rest of the organization is seeing too.

Exactly. And even better, if it sees it and then maybe someone doesn't, then you can start to figure out what's the disconnect.

Right. And I mean, the other thing that's kind of fun with Slackbot and I don't know how much you've pushed it, but you can also ask it for suggestions. Be like, hey, if I want to get this project back on track, what are some steps do you think I should take to do so? And it will provide that for you.

Yeah, it's funny you say that. So in my daily prompt, I always have bluff on the top, bottom line up front. And in it, it's saying, like, here's the top three. If you don't do anything else in what I'm about to send you, because I prompted it to do this, like, pay attention to these three things. But in those three things, it includes suggestions. So for example, one of our AES had really good news in an account and it drafted a note and said, oh, you know, Spencer got really good news in this account. Here's a note that you can send him. And so it is really being able to take it to the next step. You just have to ask it.

I love that you've drafted the note and all you have to do is cut and paste and send it on over.

And it knows how I talk because it's watching how I talk.

Well, and I think that's also a really interesting context about yourself that Slackbot knows because it will actually talk to you and talk to you. I guess it's writing to you in the tone that it knows you like to be communicated with. Right. It customizes based on how you are communicating inside of Slack. And like, it'll start using the emojis that you like to use. Right. You guys like what the webflow Heart emoji.

You have the webflow Heart emoji. I made my own emoji that is called Play to Win.

Love that, love that. And Slackbot will feed it back to you. Yeah, that's awesome. So let's talk a little bit more about. So this performance review idea, driving transparency sounds like a great win across the board. How have you seen other people start to use Slackbot within your org? Are you seeing your teammates starting to pick it up? Are you seeing people sharing prompts, sharing things that they're pushing it to do?

Yeah, it's interesting. I think the way that I've approached it to try to encourage, to get people to start to delve into it and understand it is actually starting with the fun things like, tell me something that and I actually asked it earlier, but tell me something that I wouldn't know about myself and it'll look through and give you feedback. And what I realized is one, it's very polite and everyone likes to be complimented. So I actually was recommending to different people on my team, like, oh, you should ask Slack Bot this question. And I find that sometimes seeing the power of even being able to pull something that happened in August and then last September, and being able to pull all these different threads seemingly unconnected, to give you a representation of maybe how you're showing up, I think actually represents the power of what you could do. And so for me, the thing that I'm most excited about is letting people just be creative with it. But first they have to understand what it can do. And I think some of these lightweight, fun things, whether it be the animal or tell me about something you don't know, I think is actually a really creative way to help people understand what it can do.

I agree. Yeah. I think one of the first things I did well, first I used Stockbot just to help me find information. I think that's kind of the entry point. And then I started asking it some of these silly questions. One of my questions was like, what emoji does my team use the most? And it was because I was trying to figure out how to make some silly pins for our team or something. And it was great. It was like, oh, well, you know, Mike and me, I really like this one. But this one shows up a lot when Kathy posts. And it was really, I'm going to steal that one. That's a good one. Yeah, you should try it. And it's always all the fun. Custom emojis.

Well, I think part of it is because part of the value for Us of Slack, as I said, we're remote. And while we do have, in person, in a couple offices, it becomes not only a representation of the work that has to get done, but also all of the relationships that are really critical to not only our success, but in our customer success. And so I think part of the thing that's very interesting about is about Slackpot is it's not just about the workflows that you can run. And I think that's going to be where we start to get a lot of productivity. But I think it's also about the joy that comes with work and being able to accentuate that.

That just made me so happy. Because one of the reasons Slack is built is to make work more joyful. Right. To make it pleasant. So that's wonderful. Okay, I have some rapid fire Slackbot questions. Are you ready?

Ready.

Okay. How would you describe Slackbot in one word?

Curious.

Ooh, I like that. My favorite way to use Slackbot is in the morning. Okay. If Slackbot starred in a movie, what actor would you pick it to play?

Ooh, Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise. I actually can see, like, a Slackbot with, like, Tom Cruise.

Well, mostly because I mostly ask it questions that I don't think are gonna be possible to answer. And so Mission Impossible.

Mission Impossible, Got it. I mean, there's always room for another sequel, right?

Always.

All right. Slackbot has helped me save X amount of time.

I'd say like 45 minutes a day.

That's huge.

Yeah.

That's a lot of productivity, especially from someone who's got such a big job as you. That's great. That's great. Okay, what tips do you have for people who are just getting their hands on Sockbot for the first time and maybe are still trying to understand exactly how they might be able to start using it?

Start with fun questions. Start with things that you may already know the answer to so that you can get confidence. I think one of the hard things is when you're using something that's generative, you don't know what's going to come from the answer. And so what I actually started doing when I first started is ask the questions that I actually knew the answers to to validate and give me confidence. And then once that happened, then I started to ask it questions I didn't know the answers to, but I felt like I could trust it at that point.

That's really, really good. One thing I think we were talking about this earlier is really thinking about playing with prompts because the responses from Slackbot are Always going to be great. It's Slackbot, but they're going to be better if you actually give it a very specific prompt. Same thing with any LLM. What are some elements of a good prompt that you found have really helped you?

So for me, just because I have a lot of context switching, I always force it to do bottom line upfront as an example. The other thing I always do is say use specific. So I force it to include specific dates if it's referencing anything, because that way I know how new or old it is. It's not that there's difference. Something old could be valuable if it was like from six months ago, but I want to know that it was six months ago. So being able to force it into some of those specifics I found to be really useful. And then the other piece that I would say is that every one of us likes to consume information different. And so being able to give it guidance as to how you consume and process better will work, I think more effectively. You'll be able to skim it faster. I personally read a book recently called Writing for Busy Readers, which basically talks through like it was written by two Harvard professors and it was basically how do we write in a world where everyone's very busy and where people skim naturally? And so I actually use some of the principles of that in my daily prompt so that that way it would be easily skimmable and understandable. And so giving it guidance, it's like how to give you the format that you want and then also just some small hacks like specific dates.

Yeah, those are great tips. Well, Adrian, thank you so much for joining us. I learned stuff about using Slackbot from talking to you today, so I'm really excited to take some of that back and how I'm using Slackbot, but I'm sure everyone else did as well. Really appreciate you coming here today. And yeah, let's go have some more fun with Slackbot.

Let's do it.

I love it.