Hey Wranglers,
Recently, we announced that Wrangle is coming to Microsoft Teams.
Today I want to go deeper - not on the product, but on the problem we're seeing inside Teams-first organizations, and what I'd actually do about it if I were running service ops there right now.
Key Takeaways
Teams-first orgs have a DM problem that's structurally worse than anything we saw in Slack - and most teams don't realize how much work is getting lost because of it.
There's a simple audit you can run this week to see exactly where your internal service experience is breaking down.
The line between internal and external support is blurring fast. Getting ahead of it now is easier than retrofitting later.
The DM Problem Is Worse in Teams Than Anywhere Else
Slack has channels. Teams has DMs.
Teams users default to direct messages in a way Slack users don't - which means requests get buried faster, context disappears sooner, and the person responsible has no reliable way to track what's outstanding.
We see this constantly: an IT or HR team that genuinely wants to be responsive, but is effectively running their entire operation out of a personal inbox. No visibility for the rest of the team. No history for the next person who picks it up.
No way to spot patterns over time.
That's not a people problem. That's a tooling problem.
Practical Moves If Your Org Runs on Teams
Whether you ever use Wrangle or not, here's what I'd do if I were running service ops in a Teams-first company:
1. Audit where requests actually start.
Don't look at your formal systems first. Watch the DMs, shared channels, and ad hoc chats. The real volume almost always lives there - not in the official portal.
2. Start with one internal team as your testbed.
IT, HR, legal, finance - any group that gets requests from others internally is a good candidate. Pick one, map their DM-based work, and design a simple way to track and resolve it.
3. Treat service quality as a competitive edge.
What's harder to copy than features is a team that responds quickly, learns from every interaction, and builds for real users. That's where retention comes from - for internal and external customers alike.
4. Think beyond internal-only.
As Teams, email, and Slack Connect converge, the line between internal and customer-facing support is getting blurry.
We're already seeing Wrangle expand from IT/HR into CX use cases - not by design, but because the same DM-chaos problem shows up there too.
Try This This Week
Pick one team - IT, HR, or another internal service group. Pull up a recent week of their Teams activity: DMs, channels, mentions.
Categorize 20-30 requests into:
Repetitive questions
One-off edge cases
Time-sensitive issues
Then ask three questions:
Which of these should never be lost in a DM again?
Which could be handled faster with a lightweight ticket or workflow?
Which are great candidates for AI-assisted responses or deflection?
You'll walk away with a clearer picture of where your internal service experience is breaking down - and where a Teams-native approach could help.
👉 If your organization runs on Teams and you're drowning in DMs, we'd love to talk. Hit reply and let's talk.
Thanks for reading,
Adam Smith
CEO & Founder, Wrangle