Can You Be Too Transparent in Your Customer Community?

Introduction

Collaboration with your customers can be a game-changer in project management, but it’s not without its challenges. In this Klient Tips article, we’ll dive into the top pros and cons of involving your customers in your projects, helping you make smart decisions that keep both your team and your customers happy.

The Pros of Collaborating with Customers

1. Enhanced Communication and Understanding

When customers are part of the project team, communication becomes clearer and more effective. This close collaboration ensures that everyone’s on the same page, and the final product truly reflects what the customer needs.

2. Faster Problem Solving

With your customers directly involved, decisions can be made quicker. Their immediate feedback and approvals mean you can address issues as they come up, keeping the project on track and avoiding unnecessary delays.

3. Stronger Customer Relationships

Working closely with customers builds trust. This partnership approach turns a simple transaction into a long-term relationship, making customers more likely to return for future projects or recommend you to others.

 How We Do It at Klient:

We use Klient Customer Community to collaborate closely with our customers, especially during the onboarding process. The access to this platform, built on Salesforce Experience Cloud, is provided to all our new customers so they can track their onboarding projects and monitor the details of their implementation through our project Gantt chart. Customers can flag risks or issues if they feel the need, and they can chat live through Chatter, ensuring that everyone stays aligned and informed every step of the way. And because learning a new tool requires hands-on involvement, we assign homework as tasks to our customers and collaborate on its completion.

The Cons of Collaborating with Customers

1. More Work for the Team

Keeping the project always up-to-date for customer visibility adds extra work for your team. It’s important to maintain the balance between keeping customers informed and not overwhelming your team with constant updates.

2. Full Visibility Can Create Anxiety

While transparency is key, it can sometimes cause customers to worry. Seeing project hours increase or noticing little visible progress can lead to unnecessary concerns, even if everything is going according to plan.

3. Too Much Interaction

Customer involvement is great, but it can also lead to a flood of questions and interactions. Without proper management, this can become a distraction, slowing down your team and impacting the project timeline.

 How We Do It at Klient:

There is a certain discipline required, but with the right processes and automation in place, it becomes manageable. Our team updates their tasks and projects daily, including timesheets, as everything is seamlessly integrated within a Klient Task. To ensure accountability, every Monday, all projects are reviewed during the Professional Services team’s weekly meeting, and any necessary schedule adjustments are made at that time.

By having a standing weekly meeting scheduled with your customer during the implementation phase, you can alleviate any anxiety. Your customer will appreciate knowing that they have a regular opportunity to discuss progress and concerns with you.

As for managing excessive interaction, when you log all the hours spent on meetings, emails, and answering questions, and the customer sees how quickly the budget is being consumed, it often encourages a change in their approach, leading to more focused and efficient communication.

Conclusion

Collaborating with your customers can be incredibly beneficial, but it’s essential to be aware of the potential pitfalls. By understanding the pros and cons, you can create a collaborative environment that leads to successful projects and satisfied customers. At Klient, our customer community is the cornerstone of fostering strong, productive partnerships that benefit everyone involved.

Written by Yanick Abraham.
You can reach me on LinkedIn, I’m usually very responsive.

How Weekly Project Status Updates Can Reduce Stress and Improve Communication

Transparency is the cornerstone of successful project management. At Klient.com, we believe that sharing project statuses weekly not only builds trust but also ensures that everyone involved can sleep a little easier. Here’s why consistent project updates are a game-changer and how you can implement them effectively.

Why Weekly Project Status Updates Relieve Stress

As the end of the month approaches, anxiety builds up for project managers and consultants, causing insomnia and restless nights. This is because an invoice will soon be sent to the customer. The customer doesn’t know yet, but he will be angry because the team went over budget. Want to sleep better? Weekly Project Status Updates!

Awareness and Accountability

When everyone is in the loop, there’s a collective understanding of the project’s progress, reducing surprises and fostering a shared sense of direction. Weekly updates put the spotlight on accountability, encouraging team members to stay on top of their tasks knowing their progress will be reviewed regularly.

Early Error Detection

Frequent updates ensure that any issues are caught early. This means problems are less likely to escalate, keeping the project on track and minimizing stress.

Communication is Key

Weekly updates provide an excellent opportunity to check in with your customer and discuss project progress. Building regular communication makes tough conversations easier when issues arise.

Implementing Effective Project Status Updates

To reap these benefits, here’s how you can set up a robust project status reporting system:

1. Clear WBS from the Get-Go

Start with a clear Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Define a proper deliverable structure and identify key milestones, such as the kickoff, completion of User Acceptance Testing, and the Go-Live date. This provides a solid foundation for tracking progress.

🔦 How we do it at Klient: Through our Customer Community, we share a Read-Only Project Gantt to expose the calendar of key milestones. See a Screenshot example here.

2. Use a Good Project Status Template

Create a project status template that includes all relevant fields. Ensure it captures the necessary information, like current status, % completion, upcoming tasks, and any issues. Consistency in reporting helps in understanding the project’s trajectory.

🔦 How we do it at Klient: Here is our default Project Status template Screenshot1 – Screenshot2.

3. Ensure Proper Project Management by the Team

All team members should ensure that their status and % complete are updated accurately. Implement automatic notifications for missing timesheets to ensure all hours are accounted for. This keeps the data accurate and the project on track.

🔦 How we do it at Klient: We recommend logging hours daily. This ensures better tracking and is fairer for both the customer and the employer.

4. Monitor and Automate Status Report Submissions

Monitor whether the project manager sends the status report weekly. Use tools that automate reminders and notifications to ensure timely submissions. This keeps everyone accountable and the project moving forward.

🔦 How we do it at Klient: At Klient, we ensure that our Project Status Updates are sent every week to all our customers. We track this with a report and an EOS L10 Weekly Data point. The Salesforce formula for it is: % Budget Status Sent Last Week = Project Status email sent / total active customer projects.

5. Craft Compelling Email Titles and Use a Proper Email Template

Your email titles should be compelling to ensure they get the attention they deserve. A well-crafted title increases the likelihood of the report being read and acted upon. Additionally, use an email template that clearly presents the project status. It should be easy to read and highlight the critical information. A well-designed template makes it easier for stakeholders to grasp the project’s status quickly. With standard Salesforce Activities and email templates, you can build an automated email with Salesforce Flow that merges fields from your Klient Projects and Tasks and selects a predefined title automatically.

🔦 How we do it at Klient: At Drakya (Klient’s inception), we used three automated email titles to ensure our messages stood out and got read. When we merged Drakya and Krow Software to become Klient, we retained the spirit of Weekly Project Status Updates, though in a less automated way. The automated and straight to the point title were:

URGENT – Project Overbudget
WARNING – Project Slightly Off Track
ALL GOOD – Your Project is On Track

Conclusion

By following these steps, you’ll not only keep your projects on track but also foster a culture of transparency and accountability.

I know I sleep well knowing my team is keeping their customers informed. Every project manager deserves a good night’s sleep—start your weekly project status updates today!

Written by Yanick Abraham.
You can reach me on LinkedIn, I’m usually very responsive.

How Transparency Drives Success & Maximizes Revenue in Challenging Economic Times

In today’s challenging economic environment, maintaining strong relationships with your customers is more crucial than ever. Ensuring customer satisfaction and maximizing each engagement is key to mutual success. Sharing project updates and statuses helps keep everyone honest and reduces the friction caused by time delays and budget overruns at the end of the month. Sharing the good and the bad is not always easy, but being transparent ensures that these issues are identified and communicated before they derail the entire project.

Transparency starts during the sales cycle with realistic timelines and clear descriptions of deliverables. It continues with proper monitoring of project statuses and schedules, sharing real-time updates, and providing continuous access to project tasks. This consistent transparency keeps customers happy because there are no surprises at the end of each month. True transparency builds lasting satisfaction.

At Klient, we believe in the power of transparency. This means using our Customer Community to foster collaboration, trust, and mutual success. Beyond sharing project statuses, timelines, and invoices, we also share our product roadmap and invite our customers to vote on new features to be implemented. This ensures that our customers are always part of our growth journey.

Not sure where to start? Here are some of the main items that need to be shared in your customer community to build trust through transparency:

Sharing Project Status

Keeping your customers informed about the status of their projects is essential for building trust. Regular updates on task progress, potential roadblocks, and achievements ensure that your customers are always in the loop. Implementing simple yet rigorous processes makes it easy for your team to share, monitor, and automate these updates. This approach not only builds confidence but also allows for quick adjustments if the project starts veering off course. Sharing project statuses contributes to delivering your project on time, on budget, and on schedule.

🔦 How we do it at Klient: At Klient, we ensure that our Project Status Updates are sent every week to all our customers. We track this with a report and an EOS L10 Weekly Data point. The Salesforce formula for it is: % Budget Status Sent Last Week = Project Status email sent / total active customer projects.

Collaborating with Customers

True transparency goes beyond merely sharing information; it involves active collaboration. Engaging your customers in the project process allows you to tap into their insights and expertise, which can be invaluable. This collaboration can take many forms, such as joint task assignments, shared file access, live chat feeds, and interactive storyboards. Such an approach not only improves project outcomes but also makes customers feel valued and integral to the project’s success.

🔦  How we do it at Klient: When you start an implementation with Klient, the same project that was used during the sales cycle for estimation and the Statement of Work is shared with the customer. Specific read-only views are provided to track milestones, and joint tasks allow the customer to securely submit files, approve deliverables, and change statuses.

Exposing Key Deliverable Dates with Milestones

Milestones are critical checkpoints in any project, marking significant phases of progress. Sharing these simple points in time with your customers ensures alignment on expectations and deadlines. It also provides a clear framework for measuring progress and identifying any delays early on. Sharing key milestone dates helps your customers plan and prepare effectively. Relying on the status and dates of a few key milestones is a great way to keep main stakeholders informed. Instead of having to track multiple tasks and deliverables, you just have to check if the dates of your milestones are sliding.

🔦  How we do it at Klient: At Klient, we share the following key milestones when you undertake a project with us: Signatures, Project Kickoff, Project Plan Confirmed, UAT & Training Kickoff, Project Go-Live, and Project Closure. We share these through our Customer Community, not only with our customers but also with Salesforce Account Executives, who love to be informed of the status of new implementations.

The Role of Klient Customer Community in Enhancing Transparency

Our Customer Community is designed to support transparency and collaboration by exposing key objects and interfaces like Projects, Tasks, Risks, Issues, Invoices, Kanban, Gantt, Chatter, and Milestones. Klient Customer Community provides a comprehensive view for customer engagement. Coupled with live sessions with our Project Advisors to ensure proper implementation, it guarantees customer satisfaction, increases repeat business, and maximizes revenue.

Conclusion

Transparency isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential. It builds trust, encourages collaboration, and keeps everyone on the same page. With Klient’s Customer Community, transparency becomes an integral part of your project management approach. At Klient, we believe that project transparency should be total to ensure mutual success.

Embrace transparency, collaborate actively, and watch your customer relationships flourish.

Written by Yanick Abraham.
You can reach me on LinkedIn, I’m usually very responsive.