Should You Bring Clients Onto Your Internal Communication Platforms | EP 259

Should You Bring Clients Onto Your Internal Communication Platforms

1. Pro: They can track progress of projects in your project management tool 01:22
   • The client can see what is happening on the project, rather than being in the dark or requiring updates from you.
2. Con: You have to teach them how to use something new (most likely) 02:06
   • Your internal communications platforms may be easy peasy for you, but might be really confusing to your client.
   • If that’s the case, you’ll have to spend time training them on how to use it.
   • For shorter projects, it’s probably not worth it. If it is a longer project, you might want to consider this.
3. Pro: They communicate with you and your team without long confusing email threads 03:00
   • If you’ve been doing client work for awhile now, you know how long email threads can get, especially if you don’t determine a main point of contact.
   • If you communicate through a software like Slack, you can easily see who sent what at what date and you can use the search functionality.
4. Con: You may be giving them too much info on project details 04:24
   • When you give too many details, you open yourself up to what we call “the over the shoulder designer”.
   • When clients are constantly giving their opinion on each step, it can really interrupt your workflow.
5. Tim’s process 05:15
   • Tim has never brought a client into a project management platform, mainly for the cons mentioned above.
   • He would rather control what a client sees and when.
   • However, he has brought clients into his Slack channel to better communicate.
6. David’s process 06:16
   • David does not bring clients into his project management software either. “We don’t like backseat drivers.”
   • David creates a new slack for every project and uses this to communicate on the project, instead of creating a new channel within an account.
   • When the project is completed, he kills the slack.
7. Meme for “over the should designing” 08:50
   • This meme shares a special pricing model for these types of clients.

Thanks for listening to another episode of WP the Podcast!

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for awhile and you’ve found value out of it, we would love if you would leave us a review on iTunes! The more reviews we get for the podcast, the easier it will be for other people to discover us on iTunes. Thanks so much and see you tomorrow for another episode of WP the Podcast.