How A Creative Agency Can Boost Client Communication With Collaborative Software

Outsourced content creation, digital marketing and PR, translation services, and many other tasks require continuous collaboration with clients — with better results in time and quality achieved through clear instant communication and convenient sharing.

Let’s discover what tools can help your creative team improve client communication efficiency on the example of ONLYOFFICE Workspace.

Share documents and media in a single space

It is convenient to keep all documents related to a particular project in one single place: agreements and invoices, creative breafs, presentations, texts, and any other files.

With everyone from your and client’s team having instant access to this storage, you don’t need to constantly exchange documents via mail to get something reviewed, approved, or signed.

Always make sure to explore the available types of document access rights, to protect your data from unwanted alterations and give permission to use required collaborative features. In ONLYOFFICE, you can share files for commenting only, reviewing (ability to edit with Track Changes mode on and add comments), and filling forms.

If you want to demonstrate a spreadsheet but need to hide certain data and allow freedom of filtering without affecting the initial file — use Custom Filter permission when sharing it with your clients.

ONLYOFFICE Workspace also includes built-in multimedia player for opening videos and audio files, so you can keep all types of content together without need for additional software to view it.

With everyone using the same office software to open and edit the exchanged files, the accuracy of display and integrity of documents is always guaranteed. In ONLYOFFICE Workspace, a collaborative suite is part of the platform, and it is highly compatible with MS Office and other popular editors in case you need to send your files over to external collaborators.

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Review and collaborate on files together

Now let’s have a closer look at how to work together on files, including both documentation and work-in-progress materials, and make the most use of the collaborative features — with reviewing, comments, document comparison, and more.

Track Changes mode helps get your documents reviewed quickly, with all suggested changes and their author highlighted. This is helpful when any of the parties suggest corrections and additions, as the changes are easy to navigate, accept or reject, and preview with all of them accepted or rejected at once.

In ONLYOFFICE, you can even compare two different documents with Document Comparison, a mode that uses Track Changes to highlight and navigate differences in two files — this is particularly useful for comparing contracts.

Authors of texts, spreadsheets, and even presentations can leave comments and mention each other in them to quickly raise issues and get the collaborator notified. If you have some urgent remark, you can make your comment appear in client’s mailbox immediately with a mention to get the answer ASAP.

Schedule everything in shared calendars

Add the invited users to project calendars to schedule calls and meetings, plan demonstrations and set deadlines. A shared calendar can save a lot of time for both the team and the client, as everyone is notified about the upcoming events and nobody needs to set additional reminders.

You can share your calendar to a client so they can pick convenient call times from your schedule without having to discuss dates and time zones via mail or a messenger.

It is possible to sync the calendars with third-party apps like Google Calendar or iCal applications, so your clients can use any software they prefer and get instant updates from you without visiting your portal.

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Build trust by inviting clients to your project schedule

Guest users of Projects can browse common projects and private projects where they are invited as a team member. This allows your clients to see the status of work and browse different tasks and subtasks in each process.

Additionally, this will give your client a feeling of transparency and trust: they will see how processes work in your team and how the inner deadlines are built.

With subscription to certain projects it is possible to get live updates via notifications themselves, and you don’t need to spend time writing emails and messages to keep your colleagues on the other end posted about what’s happening.

Guests can get fully involved in work and leave comments in project discussions if they have a question to as — the responsible members of your team will be there to help, while everyone else will be fully aware of issues that get brought up or solved.

Add external users as guests

Inviting users to your collaborative suite as guests is the best way of giving safe temporary access to your common projects without having to pay additional money for number of users.

Guests have limited, view-only access permissions which means they will be able to see the information you share with them (documents, tasks, calendar events) but not alter anything.

For example, in ONLYOFFICE Workspace, guest users have access to common documents and files shared with them in view-only mode, ability to browse projects and tasks they are invited as a member to, add comments and media to existing posts in blogs.

Guests also can edit their profile and contact information, which means they are not some anonymous entities in your system, but real users of the platform.

Work smart

Leave ponderous email culture to formalities. Inviting your clients to a ‘home’ of your project is not only a way to establish trust and comfort, but it also saves lots of time for both of you on reaching agreements, reviewing content, and scheduling the events inside your venture.

Give your partners on the other side a freedom to participate in the project more closely and watch your client communication transform from bureaucratic burden to seamless collaboration.

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