Loop & Tie helps companies provide a better gifting experience by allowing their customers or employees to choose from a selection of sustainable gifts, reducing the waste of unwanted gifts, and ensuring that every gift has a positive impact on the planet or a community. The company prides itself on being carbon regenerative, which means it gives back more than it takes out—and supports a regenerative farming program in Tanzania.

Kelly partners with teams that handle inventory, fulfillment, and shipping to ensure an exceptional experience from the time a recipient accepts and chooses their gift to when they receive their beautifully wrapped package.

Before joining Loop & Tie, Kelly spent over ten years working in technical documentation and communications, so she also takes on special projects to improve documentation at the company. "There are a lot of processes we have to follow on the backend and operational side of things, and it's critical that we document them all so that everyone knows how things work," she says.

The value of accessibility of information to process-heavy work

As a logistics-heavy business, processes are critical to how Loop & Tie delivers a great customer experience—and, of course, their gifts. To that end, it's important that processes be documented and accessible so they are followed and every person at every step knows what needs to be done and how to do it.

Before adopting Slab, the team was working together across Slack, Google Drive, and Dropbox, but the tools weren't providing the accessibility they needed. It became difficult for the team to remember where information lived within each of the tools. "I love Slack for communicating amongst the team, but trying to find information in there is really difficult because there's so much chatter," Kelly says. The team turned to Slab to house all of the company's documentation and make finding information easy for everyone. By striving for accessibility of documentation, they can ensure that processes are followed every time because the team knows where to look for them.

How answering questions with Slab reduces repetition and drives adoption

Kelly and her team embraced Slab early on, adding lots of posts and information. Anytime they'd get a question about supply chain or logistics, her team would make sure there was an answer in Slab and share the post instead of answering the question directly. Over time, people started to go to Slab first, helping themselves to the information they needed when they needed it. This saved time for them as well as the person they would have ended up asking.

“More and more people realized there's a lot of really good information on Slab, and it's always there when they need it.”

The team then expanded their use of Slab to document all of their processes and, eventually, all of Loop & Tie's company information, including its HR documentation and policies. "Much of the company documentation we keep in Slab isn't necessary for folks to know from month to month, but when they need it, they need to be able to find it—with Slab, they are," Kelly says.

Cross-functional use drives transparency and clarity

The entire company relies on Slab to document cross-functional projects and work that impacts the entire organization. Giving the team transparency and an understanding of the work that's being done across Loop & Tie. For example, the Marketing team recently shared all the documentation for their brand refresh in Slab. Now everyone can find the new brand guidelines and assets without having to remember which Slack channel they were shared in.

“Slab provides us with transparency into projects, clarity on progress, and documentation of decisions that have been made.”

And because the whole team has access to Slab, they don't need to manage permissions to posts—everyone can find and access what they need. When they used Google Docs, document owners had to add people or field share requests and questions about where something was saved. With Slab, it's open and available to everyone automatically, making it easier and faster for people to hop onto projects when they need to. Overall, this ease of access helps the whole company move more quickly toward its goals.

Meeting-heavy processes, like onboarding, are simplified

Now that Loop & Tie uses Slab as its central hub for documentation, the team needs fewer tools and holds fewer meetings to run processes that otherwise would involve many meetings, like onboarding. Rather than relying on meetings to relay and share information, it all lives in one place where new employees can find it easily and existing employees can update it.

Compared to onboarding past employees, the process is much faster and easier for hiring managers: all they have to do is review the Slab onboarding documentation to make sure it's up to date and share it with their new hire. When the team used Google Docs, they struggled to find the right version of the documentation. With Slab, they can always be sure they're looking at the right document because there's only one version.

Using Slab also democratizes the onboarding process by empowering new hires to add their bios to Loop & Tie's list of employees. Rather than sending their information to someone or getting permission to edit the document, they can update their information right away—and learn how to use Slab at the same time.

Improving consistency of processes with a single source of truth

Since switching to Slab, the team has had more consistency in their processes, like monthly, quarterly, or bi-annual reporting. Because steps are documented, they can be confident that repeat tasks are done the same way every time.

“Having processes documented helps everyone—whether we're ensuring consistency and quality by following our own processes, bringing on a new employee and training them, or a team member goes on vacation.”

There's also consistency in the quality of information provided to customers and customer-facing teams. For example, these teams are often asked why Loop & Tie doesn't offer gift cards or how to use their charity donation function. With Slab posts that clearly explain Loop & Tie's values and approach to these questions, the team provides consistent responses to customers any time a question is asked.

"No matter who you ask, everyone is equipped to give a thoughtful, high-quality, accurate answer with our documentation in Slab," Kelly says. This ensures a consistent experience for customers, and if anything changes internally, the team can easily update the documentation.

Empowering the entire team with documentation so anyone can jump into a process when needed

Because people trust the information in Slab, folks now get fewer questions about whether something is out of date—they can clearly see when it was last edited, by whom, and who created or contributed to a post.

With this trust comes peace of mind: when someone goes on vacation or leave, the rest of the team can pick up where they left off. "With everything documented in Slab, it's easy for us to follow along, and nobody worries about missing steps of other peoples' work," Kelly says.

Loop & Tie has strong values around taking time off and not checking in while someone is out of the office—which Slab helps them put into practice. This provides peace of mind for those working and the ability for those taking time off to truly unplug.

And even if nobody is on vacation, Slab empowers Loop & Tie's remote team by providing them with a place to document information instead of pinging teammates in different time zones. This keeps up the momentum of sales conversations and gives every employee the confidence that they have the best information available to do their job.

Usability and consistency drive better and more utilized documentation

In her work leading documentation efforts, Kelly has used a lot of tools. One thing she's discovered is that usability drives use and better documentation. If a tool creates any friction, people might go and find information, but they won't document or create content. With Slab, information is consistently used, and because it's simple, people create documentation, too.

“If people don't understand how to use something—if they hesitate at all—they just won't use it. That's why Slab is so powerful: It's the simplest for everyone to learn and use, and doesn't require training to understand how to use it.”

And even though Slab is easy to use, the team takes a mindful approach to documenting information by focusing on what people really need to know. Rather than overcrowding Slab with extraneous content, they make sure every post serves a purpose. "We put information in Slab that people are looking for—we don't just have it out there to have it out there," Kelly says.

Loop & Tie knows very well that positive cycles create more positive outcomes—it's why they're so committed to sustainability in their business model. By documenting important processes and information, they're creating another positive cycle. Documentation and knowledge-sharing empower their team and create consistency across their business—helping them better deliver on their mission and values.