Poison Drop
How Poison Drop, Russia's leading jewelry department store, moved from Slack to Pachca
About the company
Hi! I'm Dmitry, COO at Poison Drop. We're Russia's leading jewelry department store. Our catalog includes thousands of pieces from 200 designers around the world, from global brands to Russian artisans. We carefully curate our collections, keep up with fashion trends and offer exclusive pieces for every style.
Life before Pachca
Before Pachca, we used Slack, but at some point we couldn't renew our paid subscription and ended up on the free plan. We looked for an alternative and first chose Rocket Chat. But the switch was painful: the platform turned out to be heavy and laggy, with an unfamiliar interface and hard-to-reach support. Eventually we found a way to open a new workspace in Slack and went back.
Then we got a notice that Slack would block Russian companies for good, so we had to move fast. With such a tight deadline, we didn't look at other options and just went with Pachca. It was the right call.
The biggest discovery was that we could bring over our chat history. At first, not everyone on the team believed it. Some employees even recorded their important chats: they turned on screen recording and slowly scrolled through their conversations so they wouldn't lose information. But in the end, the transition was smooth: we moved everything to Pachca ahead of time, and Slack really did shut us off, 10 days after the announced date.
The moment we knew Pachca was the one
The most important thing for us was keeping all our automations. We definitely weren't ready to lose notifications about returns or our integrations with spreadsheets and trackers, since key operational processes run on them. Personal support also helped a lot. We always had a direct line to the Pachca team, and they helped us at every stage of the move.
How Pachca changed the way we communicate
Most importantly, we didn't lose anything: our core features are all there and work just as well. We also didn't run into any technical limitations and were able to keep improving our workflows and automations.
Cross-chat threads also caught on across the company: we use them a lot to discuss specific topics without creating extra chats. For me personally, it was important to keep custom notification settings. That makes work-life balance much easier: notifications from work chats don't reach me after 8 p.m. or on vacation.
Tips for switching
Have the new app tested by the employees who rely on it most. They don't have to be technical specialists. But this way, the test is sure to cover everything important, and you'll know in advance how your workflows might change and how to adapt.
These employees can then become ambassadors for the new app inside the company and help colleagues get used to it. We also ran our communication with Pachca support through them. That took a lot of stress out of the move and made the transition smoother.
Most importantly, trust the solution you've chosen. In our case, all our workflows stayed intact and even got better, which proved the move was the right one.
