Messaging is eating client management.
Providing services to clients? get ready for a bit of disruption…
I’m no James Bond, but sometimes I do feel like a special agent from the movies, juggling 20 balls in the air, solving problems in real-time, things running as fast as an action movie.
Market after market after market is switching to real-time communication, because we lost the patience, or the luxury, to wait — and why should we wait when everyone and everything is connected?
Slack is doing it for high-tech teams, Facebook is bringing customer support to Messenger and WhatsApp, even when I rent a house on AirBnB, I use their internal messaging solution. Edith Yeung explained it very well in her presentation Messaging is eating the world.
This is happening because a whole generation of people, knows only one way of communicating — real-time messaging.
Older people like me, still remember the concept of calling people, sending emails, leaving messages on the their “machine”… This is all ancient history. For many people, messaging is the only way.
I’m a researcher of disruption, so here’s the original VC presentation of Intercom. Today, many sites offer built in messaging based support — but when they pitched it wasn’t as clear as it is now…
What I’m predicting is this: in the same way that Customer Relationship Management (dealing with millions of users) is moving to messaging, so will Client Relationship Management (dealing with dozens of clients).
Who is going to be affected?
Anyone working with clients: lawyers, accountants, marketing agencies, real-estate agents, design agencies, wedding planners, auto mechanics, … anyone working with a small, but changing set of clients.
Another huge group of people who are going to feel this revolution first hand, are freelancers, especially those who work with more than one client at a time.
“But I DON’T WANT my clients to reach me whenever they want…”
You know a market is on the verge of disruption, when something that is clearly more efficient, is being rejected with TOO MUCH emotion.
Many times, “too much emotion”, is just fear of change, especially when change has already happened…
I had a chat with a senior lawyer, and when I mentioned the option of working with clients in real-time, in messaging work groups, he was in arms. “NEVER” he said.
It didn’t take long for him to agree to a slightly different point of view:
- His clients are already on his WhatsApp/Text/Messenger. These are not tools built for business, but his clients CAN, and DO, reach him.
- He admits that a real-time group can be MUCH faster and more efficient than emails, something he’d LOVE to use for deals HE wants done faster.
- The younger lawyers in his firm (not to mention competitors…) are already there, he’s just being left behind.
Fear of change.
Early adopters are already there
As anyone in the software development services business will tell you, messaging is already there. It’s just controlled by the clients, not the suppliers.
I spoke to one freelance developer. He is on 15 different Slack teams. It’s a nightmare, because Slack wasn’t designed for that kind of work, but his clients force him to be on their teams.
Outside code development, tools like WorkGroup are starting to take hold, again with early adopters, such as Stever Young, Founder and CEO of AppMasters, who talks about the 3 reasons he moved his clients to messaging work groups.
There are some real concerns, that need to be addressed
With all the advantages of speed, efficiency and human personal relationships that messaging brings, it does pose problems when dealing with clients — problems that messaging tools must solve on the way to mass adoption.
- Simplicity.
- Managing action items — “What was decided?”.
- Control over Visibility
Simplicity
Most business messaging platforms are simply too complicated for non-tech clients. They have too many features, settings, admins, integrations, commands and bots.
Slack is a great example. You will only meet two types of Slack users — those who LOVE it, and those who HATE it (it’s not a coincident that Steve used the word “Hate” on the video above, and I’ve heard that specific word from many people I interviewed).
Tech-early-adopters love it so much that they simply can’t see how it is totally unusable for so many normal people, who’s consumer messaging experience is WhatsApp or Messenger. They (the tech early adopters) tend to “force” non-tech team members on it, get all excited about the integrations and bots, and then not understand when the non-tech users turn all notifications OFF and stop coming, because they just can’t stand the constant noise.
Let’s take one simple “simplicity” use case. Inviting a client to join a work group. On Slack, you need the right permission, and it’s a “process”. But on the receiving end (the client), it’s much worse, they have to sign up to a separate team, which takes some considerable effort. You can’t do that to a non-tech client… it’s a non starter.
A proper client relationship management app, should be 1-click for the client. You add a client to a group > they get an invite > they click it, and they are in. That should be it. And there should also be a backup to email them group discussion summaries, if for some reason they didn’t join.
Managing action items — “What was decided?”.
Messaging flows like a river under a bridge, it runs so fast, that you may share a great idea now, and two hours later nobody remembers your idea, not even you.
That’s why, in my opinion, Work messaging platforms are close to useless if they can’t capture business decisions in real-time. Otherwise, it’s just glorified chat.
Again, tech-teams kind-of solve the problem by using two types of tools, Slack on the one hand, and task management tools like Asana or Trello on the other. For the mass market — that’s not an option. Too complicated.
On WorkGroup, we combined messaging and task management into one simple flow — you message in the group, and whenever a decision is made, you turn it into an action item and assign to the right person.
Bringing action items together with messaging turns a “Group” into a “Work Group”.
Obviously this must come with the tools to see all your tasks, set due dates, make comments on tasks and so on — but the big innovation, is the capturing business decision on the fly, when they are fresh, so everyone sees them being created, can get on-board, and nothing falls between the cracks.
One of the cool side-advantages, is that both sides can assign tasks to each other, so a supplier can assign a task to a client — so if a supplier can’t move forward until a client does something — it’s clearly visible to everyone in the group.
Control over visibility
“I don’t want my clients to know when I see their messages”. This is a valid point. But one that is very easily fixed with the right settings.
In my opinion — this one, is a red herring. It’s a new world, with new rules, they are different, that’s all… Once you switch to messaging, a new etiquette is naturally taking place, and people, for the most part, know how to behave. In my experience people feel LESS inclined to bother you without cause on a professional platform than on a social platform where they are your “friends”.
In additions, work related groups usually include more than one person from each side, so assigning a client relationship manager into the team can help by having someone who’s job it is to manage the relationship and keep the client happy.
So here is my prediction:
Over the next two years, most clients will come to expect real-time communication from all their suppliers, in the same way that we now expect new friends to be on our favorite social messaging app.
Am I wrong?
