When you’re managing client projects, your firm or agency has a lot at stake.
How can you keep your relationship with each client strong? How can you show them from day one that your team is organized and capable? And maybe most importantly, how can you provide them the services or deliverables you’ve promised?
All of this might be relatively simple to manage when you’re just managing a handful of client projects. But what happens when you’re managing 10, 20, or even 50+, as many Redbooth customers do?
It’s all about capturing your best practices and automating your workflow as much as possible. With Redbooth, it’s easy to create a fresh workspace for each new client — and then to set it up in just a few minutes with your ideal workflow.
In this post, I’ll show you how to do that. And when you’re ready to jump in and do it yourself, you can also check out the step-by-step resources in Redbooth’s Help Center (here and here).
As Director of Client Services for Redbooth, I invite you to help yourself to a cup of coffee and settle in — for the complete guide to managing your client projects more efficiently.
By the time you’re done reading this, I think you’ll have a whole new concept of how easy and efficient it can be for your to set up client workflows, stay on top of client tasks, increase accountability on your team, and much more.
Get ready to transform your client project management!
Impress your clients right from the start
What we hear from our customers is that their clients like to know what’s going on. It’s also a true value-add to be able to do that in a clean, welcoming environment. And with Redbooth, you can offer them that — and much more.
Better than a Gantt chart or a static timeline, Redbooth enables you to invite your clients right into the living, dynamic workflow.
At a glance, they can see not only which steps will be happening in their project, but where they can offer feedback, upload files or images, or simply keep an eye on what’s happening.
You can also give your clients access to their projects so they can see the plan — and the progress as it unfolds. The workspace provides total visibility and transparency into the inner workings of what you’re collaborating on with them.
To see this right off the bat is incredibly reassuring for many clients, instilling confidence that your company will give them quality long before the first deliverable is created.
Here’s what a workspace looks like in Redbooth’s new desktop app, nearly identical to the browser app). You can see how it’s set up with as many lists of tasks as you want.
We zoomed in on the right to give you a closer look at the stream of workspace-related chat and updates on the side that you can view at full size or minimize:
Set up new client workflows fast
So right now, maybe you’re thinking, “Sure, I’d love to invite my clients into a virtual workspace for their project. But my team doesn’t have hours to spend building that workspace!”
We couldn’t agree more.
If it took your team hours to set up a new workspace for each new client, that could cut into the time they have available for actual client work. And at Redbooth, we’re passionate about giving you your time back!
Redbooth helps you expedite the process with task list templates, where you can easily replicate a list of tasks or steps that you’ve already created.
You can create task list templates to construct a complete workflow, including everything from making sure the client signs the contract all the way through the project and even asking them for feedback and a testimonial at the end of the project.
If you’re still refining your client workflow, or you just want an expert take on how to set yours up, you can also utilize a Redbooth workflow template, already set up, fully customizable, and ready to launch.
For example, this is part of a workspace template based on the actual client workflow used by Blue Fish Design Studio (you can find out more about how they use Redbooth over on their blog):
From here, you can quickly add or customize tasks to fit your company’s needs.
To create your own client workspace with this template right now, just head on over to the web design template — and if you don’t yet have a Redbooth account, make sure to set one up first (you can try it free for 30 days, no credit card required).
Create total accountability on your team
You can provide your clients with peace of mind — and ensure that tasks are going to get completed. Redbooth makes it easy for you to give every task an owner and a deadline.
If someone on your team is out unexpectedly, it’s simple for another team member to see what they were working on and pitch in. Need to change a deadline to accommodate a new client request? It takes just a few seconds.
Now, we wouldn’t ask you to assign each design task to your designer one at a time! You can use Redbooth’s bulk-assign capabilities to assign them all at once, resulting in greater efficiency and a streamlined process.
If you want to make absolutely sure that every task in a client workflow has both an owner and a deadline, it’s simple to check that quickly using Redbooth’s advanced workflow reporting.
Automatically get important reminders
So what about those essential maintenance tasks that repeat on a regular basis? If you need to have a biweekly check-in with a client or a weekly imperative to review key metrics, for instance, it’s easy to forget to schedule these a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time.
All too often, these things get lost in the shuffle — unless you’re using Redbooth. Then it’s easy to stay organized and present a smoothly running infrastructure to your clients, with minimal additional effort needed on the part of your team.
For deliverables or to-do items that need to be repeated on a daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, or annual basis, Redbooth offers recurring task setup.
This helps you remain organized and keep essential behind-the-scenes processes running smoothly, increasing your overall productivity.
Capture insights from remote team members
Is your entire team on site with you 100% of the time? It’s increasingly rare for us to find a team or department where that’s the case.
Whether you’ve got one person who works from home every now and then or lots of people distributed all over the world, you’re going to want to engage with them in a productive way.
Workspace chat enables your team to connect in real time, brainstorm, and share ideas. And maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, we already have chat.”
If you do, that’s great — it means your team already knows how useful it can be!
Here’s what makes Redbooth real-time messaging different: when someone has a great idea or an update, it doesn’t just disappear.
Instead, you can capture it on the spot and turn it into an action item. Add an owner, a deadline, and details without breaking your flow.
And days, weeks, or months later, when you’re wondering about how or why the task got created? One click puts you back in the original chat conversation for immediate context.
See who can take on more work
Some teams have to wait until their next meeting to decide who to assign tasks to. Other teams find out after the fact that while one person is overloaded with work, another has been browsing Facebook all day, waiting for something to do.
Redbooth’s advanced workflow reporting lets you see at a glance who has the most active and overdue tasks. That way you know who has the most going on right now…and who’s still playing catch-up.
Being able to quickly see the workflow across your entire team will help you quickly assign tasks and assess which members need more to do…or could use some extra help.
Integrate with your clients’ favorite apps
It’s not uncommon for clients to already have their favorite apps for capturing ideas, storing and sharing files, and more.
In these situations, integrations can be a lifesaver. Redbooth offers integrations with popular platforms to make your life simple and keep your clients happy. These integrations include Box, Evernote, Google Drive, Dropbox, and SharePoint Online, to name a few.
In addition, you can use services like Zapier to connect Redbooth to over 400 other applications for billing, customer management, customer relationship, customer support, email marketing, help desk, lead generation, marketing, payment processing, and more.
Stay connected everywhere
When you, your team members, or your clients are on the road, Redbooth’s mobile apps can keep you all connected to your work — and to each other.
Available for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Android, Redbooth apps are convenient for everyone.
Provide white-glove service for your clients by answering their questions wherever you are — just because you’re not at your desk doesn’t mean you’re not available to them.
Making life easier for your team
We hear from our customers who manage client projects about what’s most important to them: providing a stellar experience for their clients and being able to focus on creating extraordinary work.
With Redbooth, you can automate processes, stay organized, increase accountability, access client workspaces from anywhere — the list goes on and on!
What it translates to for you: providing outstanding value for your clients, and improving your bottom line.
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