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How one growing business saves time and increases productivity – without all the busywork

Slack is the hub connecting the spokes of Utah-based cycling retailer Ari Bikes, saving employees two hours worth of work every day

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Ari Bikes builds beautiful, custom-made bikes fit for any journey ‌ — ‌ from landing downhill jumps on rugged mountain terrain to powering across asphalt on busy work commutes. As one of the first brands to build and sell bikes directly to customers, this Lindon, Utah-based company is committed to innovating in the cycling space.

“Creating exceptional experiences is our ethos,” said Chris Washburn, the founder and CEO of Ari Bikes. “We don’t sell just a bike, we sell an experience, a lifestyle, and a way to help a person achieve their own potential.”

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Washburn founded his custom-made bike business in 2005 as Fezzari Performance Bikes. In 2024, the company refreshed its brand as Ari‌, which means “to exist or to be” in Japanese. The company is now set to launch eight new bike models, and Slack is playing a critical role in streamlining everything from brand messaging to bike design to manufacturing.

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Powering fast and easy project management cycles

Tyler Bishop, a product manager at Ari Bikes, designs the bicycles you’ll find on the company’s sales floor and website. It’s his job to listen to customer feedback and analyze the market to understand what cyclists want. He uses that information to develop new bikes in collaboration with teammates across engineering, sales, and marketing.

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Bishop works with his colleagues in Slack channels, which provide a single space for Ari employees to share files and messages with the entire team. To easily find information and historical context in channels, he relies on search. Threads enables him to create organized discussions around specific messages.

“Every bike is a project,” said Bishop. “Slack saves me a bunch of time because it makes it easier to communicate with all of my teams while we’re developing our new bikes. As a product manager, I can’t imagine doing my job without it.”

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Ryan Nonu, an Ari operations manager, said Slack canvas is one of his go-to tools. Nonu uses canvases to share photos, videos, and design files to inspire his colleagues as they develop new products. Referencing this content from a single source helps Nonu’s team break through creative roadblocks faster.

Steering customer success

Kristy Gonzales, a customer success specialist, is responsible for setting up each Ari Bikes customer with a custom fit and the bicycle components they need, and Slack facilitates her collaboration with colleagues across the company so she can provide quick, personalized assistance to her customers.

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For example, when a customer places an order with specific bike components, Gonzales has to search internally for the parts first, which affects the final cost of a bike. With Slack, she can quickly check with multiple departments for parts or solutions, rather than physically going to each department at the warehouse. This saves her roughly two hours a day. Meanwhile, customer support and service departments stay in sync in-channel, which helps reps provide customers with accurate real-time information.

“Slack helps Ari stand out in the bike industry by providing customers with the information they need in real time,” Gonzales said. “I can easily share updates from the warehouse and our production team and let customers know when their bike will be ready.”

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Using huddles and clips to accelerate decision-making

Ari Bikes is headquartered in Utah, but most of its customers order bicycles from across the country and world. That means the company must invest in a peak-performing website and online presence.

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Ben Wright, a marketing manager at Ari Bikes, coordinates information across various departments within the company and with customers. His 10-person team supports Ari’s online presence, and manages everything the customer sees.

For example, if a spec changes on one of the bikes, Wright’s team needs to coordinate with colleagues in product, warehousing, and customer success. Keeping departments up to date on any changes is vital to keeping things running smoothly. Instead of defaulting to meetings to share information, the team communicates clearly and quickly in Slack.

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Wright and his colleagues save time they would have spent scheduling a meeting by using Slack huddles, which are perfect for informal audio or video meetings or spontaneous working sessions. If teammates aren’t available for a live video call, they catch up by using Slack clips, which are short audio and video recordings that can be created and shared within Slack channels and direct messages.

Blazing the trail of productivity with Slack AI

Teams across Ari Bikes are also increasing productivity with Slack AI‌, a generative AI tool that unlocks knowledge across Slack channels and workspaces. By tapping into the secure, trusted data unique to Ari Bikes, Slack’s native AI capabilities offer fast, accurate, search-based answers to employee questions, as well as channel and thread summaries, minimizing the time employees spend digging for information.

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“I love using AI-powered search,” said Nonu. “I can take a basic phrase I remember talking to somebody about and throw that into the search engine. Then AI-powered search provides clear, concise, personalized answers with direct citations to all the relevant Slack messages.”

“I see us as a technology company that happens to create bicycles,” said Wright. “To stay ahead of our competition and create the best bikes possible, we must take into consideration any type of technology that’s leading the way. Slack AI has done that for us.”

Slack is here to help growing businesses like Ari Bikes grow without the busywork. From powering fast and easy project management to reducing time-consuming meetings, Slack gives employees more time back in the workday to focus on what they do best.

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This article is a collaboration between Slack and G/O Media Studios.