Workers are actually far more obsessed with Slack than Microsoft Teams

When it comes to collaborating with colleagues, most workers are more likely to use Slack, rather than Microsoft Teams, new research has found.. 

However, when it comes to making video conferencing calls, chances are people will be using Teams instead of Slack.

A report from SaaS intelligence firm Productiv found 175,000 of its users opt for Slack, while 70,000 went for Teams as their productivity weapon of choice, although many of these users overlap, and go for both platforms when it suits them.

Slack is for chats, Teams is for video calls

So, for overall engagement over 60 days (measuring for one day, a week, a month, and two months), in which “engagement” is defined as logging in and sending a message, Slack is a clear winner, getting more than double the engagement compared to Teams.

Measuring for a day, 37% of Slack users engaged with the platform, compared to 14% of Teams users. Measuring for two months, on the other hand, has shown 83% for Slack users, and 42% for Teams users. 

Similar figures are for group messages, as 92% of engaged users in Slack used the feature over the course of 30 days, while just 11% of Teams users did the same.

When it comes to attending meetings, however, Teams excels, while Slack lags behind. Measuring for a single day, just 2% of Slack users logged in for the feature, compared to 46% of Teams users. For 30 days, it’s 12% and 62%, respectively.

Among the possible reasons for this discrepancy, Productiv believes, is the fact that Teams comes bundled with, and is integrated well, with Outlook. Microsoft has also “heavily advertised” the video conferencing feature in its Teams platform, while many Slack users might not be fully aware of their platform offering the same functionality.

Finally, it could be due to many Slack users already very used to Zoom for video conferencing, Productiv concluded.