Communication Workflow / Technology

Nandkishor Tripathi

I have seen team uses multiple channel for communication like Slack, WhatsApp, Google Hangout, Email, Google Drives (share files), Confluence and individual members some of their own apps based on their ease of using to manage their own task.

Would like to get some recommendation from the team to understand what are best process to manage the communication flow between Sales > CSM > Product > Customer.

There are many conversation happen with regards to procurement, agreement, project updates, change request, expectation settings with customer and many during a life cycle of project.

Sometimes communications are lost in different channel and cost huge to client service team.

How you manage such conversation in your organization?  

Is there any specific technology that helps to support this?  

Any framework during the communication workflow?

Love to hear how you have seen this working and any roads that not to travel.

Kathryn Moore

Great question, Nandkishor! Communication flow was a large topic of conversation for our team prior to remote work due to COVID, and I expect it'll become even more important now.

Regardless of the channel a team chooses, what I've noticed often causes issues is inconsistency in use. If one person prefers Slack but another person prefers Google Hangout, it is difficult to track back what was discussed at a later date. Our team isn't perfect here but we've made great improvements.

Another aspect to consider is the ability to search through the history of communication. If the team doesn't have paid Slack for example, older conversations are at risk of being lost. 

For us, a general rule of thumb is to use email for process changes, major project updates, etc. Less formal communication is acceptable in Slack. We do use our own product for communication with Product for feature requests as well.

BenB

Great subject @Nandkishor Tripathi.   This is something we're currently focusing on so we're far from perfect.  

Today for each client we sign the Sales Exec hosts a meeting providing all the ciritical details of the clients and behind the scenes notes from the sales cycle.  this is CSMs opportunity to ask questions and look for gaps.  We also include technical support (onboarding) and profesional services (depending on consulting engagement).  

Sales leverages Zoho, and CS leverage Gainsight.  The platforms are integrated but not perfect. Ever since quarantine we've realized the gap of project management so we're slowely introducing ourselves to Zoho Connect (since we already pay for it). this will become one place to manage with single source of truth when involving multiple departments. 

As we find areas between departments where we are not efficient we will host standing meeting weekly to review all open projects (CSM and Technical on boarding).  This is NOT a true solution but helps bridge the gap and find actual issues while we build out better process. 

Lisa Davis

Hi @Ben Bunting- Our sales team is currently looking at Zoho as a CRM so I'd love to hear about how your experience has been using it for CS purposes! I'd rather not have to bring in a separate tool for CS if Zoho Connect has been functional...and to your point, would like one single source of truth! Would you be willing to chat about your experience?