The "megadeal" is officially done: Salesforce acquired Slack for $27.7B. Now for the irony: Slack is known for its top notch microcopy, yet Salesforce's website copy is somehow less impressive. Now that the two have become one, let's propose some UX writing changes for Salesforce to make in light of their new, text-savvy family member.
In this case study, I suggest changes to certain chunks of microcopy on the Salesforce marketing site, inspired by Slack's voice and tone and overall style. It is a new beginning, after all.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff shared that:
“We couldn’t be more excited to have Slack as part of the Salesforce family, combining the #1 CRM and the trailblazing digital platform for the work anywhere world, together we’ll define the future of enterprise software, creating the digital HQ that enables every organization to deliver customer and employee success from anywhere.”
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield was equally as enthusiastic:
“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and reshape how and where we work, Salesforce and Slack are uniquely positioned to lead this historic shift to a digital-first world. I could not be more excited for what’s to come.”
OK, so, what can we suggest to Salesforce's voice and tone that will bring them up to par with Slack's brand voice (aka Slackify?
Hero Section
H1
Problem:
What's the added value? "Get back to growth" seems fluffy to me. I'm 'perplexed' about what it means in practice. I had to navigate to the Customer 360 product page in order to understand this terminology.
Solution:
"Growth" is indeed an up and coming business value that more and more companies are incorporating into their business model and team structure, but it's still somewhat vague, conceptional rather than concrete. Therefore, stating "get back to growth" doesn't resonate as well as another phrase could.
UX Writing Research involved:
Making sure to keeping in the spirit of an imperative sentence, I also decided to dig deeper into the Customer 360 video content to see some other keywords and phrases that are used.
Some of these included:
“Finally, one digital workflow for our entire portfolio of technology”
“Bring your customers and company together, from anywhere”
”Our entire portfolio of technology, uniting your teams on one CRM platform to create seamless customer experiences”
And so, what did we extract from these snippets?
- The concept of "team collaboration" is not only the Slack party line: it comes to play in each of the three above sentences. This includes "one digital workflow", "bring your...company together, from anywhere", "uniting your teams". Slack is the champion of team collaboration nowadays, so...it has to be said.
- Salesforce is, undoubtedly, the world's #1 CRM. So, put the concepts of team togetherness, piggyback the word "strategy" onto growth so that it feels more tangible, and inject the word "customer journey" (to give the customer experience and business outcome side of things) — and you've got your hero text. The rest is history.
Subtitle
Problem:
Sometimes avoiding a run-on sentence can be a true challenge, which is what has fallen into our lap here. The difficulty with this subtitle is that we need to account for the experience of adidas, while also enumerating the key benefits they derived from Customer 360.
Solution
Personally, the new sentence is still kind of long, but I believe it's still more concise and engaging than the original text. It's a very popular microcopy choice to use an imperative sentence when elucidating your product's added value, but, as always, there are exceptions to the rule.
One of the most impressive elements in the original subtitle is the number 1,100 that represents the adidas support agents: huge brand, huge number. So this component is definitely a keeper.
My logic was to compensate for the imperative language with an attention-grabber (albeit a declarative sentence), and making the description as concise as possible. To make sure we're keeping the 'invitation' tone of the subtitle, there's a "Discover how" at the very end.
CTA Buttons
Problem
Which is the primary button, and which is the secondary? I was slightly confused when scanning these two nicely designed, clear buttons.
I must say, however, that I also found the language to be inconsistent between the two. So what could we do?
Solution
➡️ Swap the order. In a layout like this one, the primary button should be on the right. Our ideal course of action is for the user to start a free trial, so it makes more sense for this button to be on the right.
It would also be great for any visitor to try a demo, but a trial is what we're wishing for.
➡️ Reword the "Watch Demos" terminology so that it's 100% consistent with the primary button. "Watch Demos" can be potentially ambiguous because it's unclear whether the text is in the first-person or second-person. Is the button clicker referring to himself? Or being informed that this is an option. "Show me a demo" makes things more personal, not just for the secondary button, but for the entire button-clicking flow at large.
H3 #1
Problem
Don't get me wrong, we do love the term "Welcome to your digital HQ for success from anywhere." It is Slack's website hero message, after all. In theory, it's great that Salesforce took one for the team and used it as an h3 on their marketing site. But, it's still inconsistent with the other two h3 sentences in that section.
H2 #2
Problem
Next comes the h2 "Learn what Salesforce products can do for you" that introduces the four key product areas that Salesforce products address. While the original sentence is definitely good enough, I still felt like there was room for improvement. Perhaps there's a way to dramatize the sentence, and even make it more user-focused?
From my experience, the term "learn how" is a typical sentence used on marketing sites and landing pages, maybe we can add some uniqueness? And lastly, is the word "products" definitely necessary?
Solution
I replaced the h2 with "Here's what you can do with Salesforce", keeping the idea of engaging the user in a conversational setting, but also making the subject of the sentence ("you") instead of "Salesforce products".
This way, we're empowering the user by suggesting that Salesforce is a tool which he'll use within his talent and skills. And, omitting "products" makes things simpler. After all, everyone knows that Salesforce is a product, so we probably don't need to say it twice.
H3 #2
Problem
Us UX writers do everything we can to stay away from fluff and ambiguity. The words "perfectly tailored solution" were a little too vague for my liking, as well as "any industry".
How could we keep the concept of a solution tailored and flexible to the needs of one and all, but still speak in a concrete way?
Solution
It's all about the user, at the end of the day. Which is why the word "your" can be really helpful. People generally know how popular and well-loved Salesforce is by its users, so saying "our solution" has justified credibility in its own right.
Not much specification is needed at this point, and "tailored perfectly to your industry" also gets the message across: your industry and your needs will be understood and accommodated by the Salesforce and Slack power couple.
H2 #6
Problem
Sometimes using two verbs in a seven word sentence can be overwhelming to our cognitive load. "Discover" is also used numerous times on the website, so I pondered if it could be eliminated this time.
Solution
I consider "Extend" to be a 'power word', which is why I decided that "Discover" wasn't fully necessary to add excitement to the AppExchange's value proposition.
The benefit of the marketplace is to extend Salesforce, and so that's the benefit for the user to understand from the very start.
Text
Problem
Sometimes when you ask users a rhetorical question about what they need, you can be inadvertently telling them what you'll be proposing — even before they provide their answer. I was looking for a way to define AppExchange in a simpler way, and in shorter sentences.
By asking a question that simultaneously defines the key benefit of AppExchange, the job was done.
Then, once the user is told the end result of what he'd eventually be getting, I could define what AppExchange does, but this time with fewer words.
Solution
As the website scrolling comes to a close, Salesforce narrows down on the nitty gritty of the products they offer, such as the AppExchange marketplace. I found the original sentence to be kind of overwhelming; the explanation of what AppExchange is seems slightly too verbose. At the same time, visitors do want to know what it is.
CTA Button
As you've probably already gathered, I'm a firm believe in using actionable language as much as possible. This is especially true when it comes to CTA texts. How could we make "Visit AppExchange" a little more interesting, and even informative?
Sometimes reiterating the user's key advantage in clicking and moving onward in your user flow is by pinning the major benefit onto the button UI itself.
The AppExchange is clearly all about 'tailoring your Salesforce solution', so why not put the ball in your visitor's court and make him feel like he's already taken the lead in his journey towards success?
H2 #7
Problem
It pretty much goes without saying that when a free trial discussion involves the word credit card, it'll be addressing whether there's a credit card requirement or not. This means using the word "required" might not even be necessary at all.
We can believe in our users: if they hear "no credit card" — they'll understand that this means no requirement.
Solution
I always usually try and avoid ending a sentence with a verb. I also believe that headings should be as brief as possible. What could we eliminate from here?
And there seems to be no harm done by swapping "software to install" for "software installation".
Any technology user knows that software is installed at one point or another, so using the predicate "to install" can be merged into "software installation" — and the world becomes a simpler place.
"Centre Center around Your Customer"
As the Salesforce blog's hero text reads, this world-class SaaS company puts the customer at the center. And of course, Slack does, too. UX writers' top concern is always empowering the reader's experience by making it easy, simple, and of course, engaging. And this is exactly why trimming the wording and making it more actionable wherever possible would let the Slack & Salesforce dream team stretch their muscles even further.
And by the way, being located in Israel means I'm automatically routed to the Salesforce EU site, where there's room for disagreement between American vs. European English spelling. Just for the record, "Center" should always be written with 'e' after 'c' 😂.