Slack vs email: when to use each, and how to use both

When Slack is the better tool

Quick questions, decisions and handoffs inside the team. A channel keeps one topic in one place, a thread keeps a side discussion from burying the channel, and everyone in the channel sees the same history. Someone who joins later scrolls back instead of being forwarded a chain.

When email is the better tool

Anyone outside your workspace. A customer, a supplier or a job applicant has an email address, not a seat in your Slack. Email also suits messages that have to stand on their own: a quote, a contract, an answer the other side will file or pass on to their own team.

Where the two collide: customer email

A common loop: an email to support@ lands in one person's inbox, they paste it into Slack to ask a teammate, then go back to the mail app to answer. The customer's follow-up starts the loop again.

Slack's channel email addresses (paid Slack plans) post incoming email to a channel, so the team sees it without pasting. Slack's help article doesn't describe a way to reply to the sender from Slack, so the answer is still written in the mail app.

RelayMail closes the loop. Forward the address to RelayMail and each email becomes a Slack thread; a reply in the thread goes to the sender as an email with your name on it, and their answer comes back to the same thread.

How to use both without switching apps

Keep customers on email and move the discussion to Slack. Pick one channel per address (#support for support@), connect it to RelayMail, add the RelayMail address as a forwarding address in Gmail, Outlook or your provider, and confirm forwarding. Everyone in the channel sees new mail, talks it over in the thread, and whoever answers replies right there.

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