I run a remote agency and we successfully transitioned all our client communication from email to Slack.
In the early days, like most agencies, all our communication with clients was primarily via email and the project management tool.
The design review stages with new clients are tricky. The iterations also need a rapid exchange of information. Emails are not best suited for both these scenarios. We dealt with our fair share of communication overhead during those days.
We tried one project management tool after another, believing that a perfect project management tool would solve our communication related problems.
We’ve been using Slack internally since 2016, but made this transition of onboarding all our old and new clients in 2019-20.
If you’re an agency or a client, shifting your project communication from emails to Slack will have massive benefits .
#1. Saves you hours replying to a long chain of emails or trying to find the right email thread to respond to
Contextual and threaded conversations make it easy to pick up where you left off. Sharing files and hoping on quick calls versus sending email attachments and sending calendar invites. Take your pick.
#2. Avoids Whatsapp chat messages which are difficult to manage and monitor
Many clients will tend to message you on WhatsApp because it’s convenient. But as an agency this won’t scale. Slack is convenient and provides access to the entire project team.
#3. The client vendor dynamics on Slack is that of collaborators and colleagues.
A formal relationship over email transforms into a friendlier and collaborative relationship over Slack and this has huge benefits for the productivity of everyone involved.
