Keep Important Messages from Scrolling to Oblivion with Hoop

We have a big vision at Hoop to fix the way we work. The current tools we rely on and our collaborative practices are broken, creating a vicious cycle of endless follow-ups and meetings. Our first step in this direction is to help you stop important messages in Slack from scrolling to oblivion.

What is scrolling to oblivion?

Have you ever sent or received an important request in Slack only to watch it scroll off the screen without engagement? Did anyone read it? Did they save it for later? Did it ever even exist?

Wait...Where did that important message go?

When an important message gets scrolled to oblivion it means the message gets lost in the chatter and doesn’t get responded to on time, if at all.  This break down occurs because it’s really easy to type up a quick chat message and send it off.  It feels good to hit that enter button.  So people do it all the time and we end up with lots of messages, lots of interruptions, and no time to focus.

And no time to focus is destructive to our ability to get the work done that really matters.

We’ve spoken to hundreds of business leaders and knowledge workers who experience the mental overload that comes from keeping track of important Slack messages and following up for responses.

Not every request is made for chat

While chat has many great uses, like fostering team culture, or those bursty moments of action when it’s all hands on deck, the low barrier to sending any message in chat also means it has become the default dumping ground for every type of request.

Chat treats “Should we play a crossword during the team standup?” and “Can I get feedback on next year’s product roadmap?” equally, which is a huge problem because when one of those requests scrolls to oblivion there’s the potential for fallout, stress, and frustration.

Chat falls short for some very serious reasons:

• There is no due date attached to messages
• You have no idea if anyone saved the message so they can respond later
• There are no automated follow ups to remind people to respond

That’s why some requests just don’t fit inside a chat message. Important requests require more time and thought, they typically need lengthier responses, and may require input from people who are already heads down in deep work (or at least are trying to be).

This is where Hoop can help by taking the important questions and requests out Slack and into a format that will facilitate closing the loop.

Introducing the Hoop app for Slack

With a single click of a button, an important message can be sent to Hoop so the team knows what to focus on, who’s input is needed, and by when things need to be wrapped up.  Hoop’s got your back and will make sure your requests will come full circle without frustration and a lot of prodding from you to make sure it all happens.

Hoop provides:

• Clarity from knowing who needs to respond and when
• Accountability without hassle thanks to automated nudges and reminders
• AI summaries that surface decisions and action items that came out of the discussion
• Wrap ups that are automatically sent back to Slack to keep everyone in the loop

This is just our first step in fixing the way teams work, with much more to come.

If you want to stop the scroll to oblivion, we’d love to hear from you about your business and your unique pain points. Simply fill out this two-minute Typeform survey and we’ll be in touch.