Effective communication with clients is a crucial component of project success and business sustainability, making client collaboration tools essential in today’s business landscape.
According to 2023 communication statistics, 12% of companies lost customers to competitors due to communication issues, and 68% of people left a company because of poorly managed communication.
Conversely, businesses that utilize collaboration tools for communicating with both colleagues and clients report improved project success rates and customer satisfaction. With the right tools, you can simplify project status tracking, better understand feedback, and efficiently resolve issues.
Enhancing Distributed Team Efficiency with the Right Client Collaboration Tools
Effective communication with clients is more important than ever, and client collaboration tools play a key role in making that happen. These tools enable your team to stay connected with clients, streamline project management, and keep everyone informed throughout the project lifecycle. By choosing the right tools, you can better track progress, gather actionable feedback, and address issues quickly. As you plan for 2024, carefully selecting collaboration tools that fit your team’s needs can lead to better project outcomes and stronger client relationships.
Tool #1: ProofHub for Project Planning and Tracking
ProofHub is a task management and client collaboration platform, which claims to deliver 50% faster communication for creative teams and agencies. It facilitates contextual discussions on projects both within a team and with external contributors and reviewers.
Agencies can build a whole flow of working on client projects within this tool: from design request form to project visualization to reporting. One of the strongest suites of ProofHub is web design collaboration tools that give clients the possibility to review the designs and comment on design files.
Major features
ProofHub stands out among customer partnership platforms, offering a comprehensive suite of team coordination solutions. This versatile workspace enhancer is an all-in-one hub for client engagement tools, providing a robust set of features for seamless stakeholder communication. As a premier choice in the realm of client interaction software, ProofHub facilitates smooth project cooperation and efficient workflow management. Here are its major features:
- Different project visualizations (boards, Gantt charts, activity logs, etc.)
- Chatting and discussions with file-sharing
- Possibility to annotate and proof files with markup tools
- Task and subtasks with custom fields
- Time tracking to allocate and analyze the time a team spends on a project
- Custom roles for access to different data and project
Pricing
- $89 per month ($79 if paid annually) for teams up to 10 people. Includes only core features.
- $153 per month ($139 if paid annually) for teams up to 100 people. Includes additional features like custom workflows, reports, and white labeling
Tool #2: Freehand for Brainstorming and Wireframing
Freehand is a visual collaboration platform that claims to save 5 hours per collaborator on an average project. Made by Invision, this tool is now part of Miro. It offers a customizable canvas that allows adding different prototypes and design elements for review.
It also includes task management capabilities with integrations to tools like Atlassian or Slack, allowing teams to assign tasks right next to reviewed designs.
Major features
Freehand excels as a dynamic platform in the realm of customer engagement solutions, offering a versatile digital canvas for teamwork and ideation. This innovative client cooperation system serves as a powerful visual collaboration tool, enabling seamless interaction between team members and stakeholders. As a standout option among partnership facilitation software, Freehand bridges the gap between creativity and productivity, fostering an environment where ideas flow freely and projects take shape collaboratively. Here are its major features:
- Customizable workspace for multiple users
- Smart workflows that visualize project completion
- Web design collaboration tools with asynchronous comments and reactions
- Integrations with major tools for communication and task management
- Pre-built templates for different business processes
Pricing
- Free plan for up to 30 users and 3 whiteboards
- $4.95 per month per user
- Custom pricing for additional features like specialized admin roles and enhanced security
Tool #3: Redpen for Design Review and Iteration
Redpen is a client collaboration software platform that allows users to visually explain issues and leave feedback. It gives a centralized view of client feedback and connects this data to issue-tracking systems.
The tool also allows development teams to easily capture bugs and resolve them faster. It helps enhance communication both with clients and within an internal team.
Major features
Redpen stands out in the landscape of customer partnership platforms, offering a robust solution for visual feedback and design iteration. This intuitive client interaction software streamlines the review process, serving as an indispensable tool in the arsenal of team coordination solutions. As a premier choice among stakeholder communication tools, Redpen bridges the gap between designers and clients, facilitating clear, concise, and contextual feedback. Here are its major features:
- Visual annotation tools on screenshots
- Possibility to record voice-over for detailed feedback
- Integrations with issue tracking and helpdesk software
- Automatically filled task templates
Pricing
- Free plan with basic functionality
- $249.95 per month with additional features like screen recording
Tool #4: Flowla for Workflow Automation
Flowla is a platform for creating and managing collaborative action plans. Such action plans can help all parties stay in tune with the project’s progress and provide a clear view of who’s responsible for what.
With this client collaboration software, you can visualize any project and break it down into all small actions that need to be performed by your team and clients. The tool also helps you build faster sales cycles with a unified view of client information.
Major features
Flowla enhances client collaboration with powerful tools that make working together seamless and efficient. These features are designed to improve how teams interact with clients, ensuring smooth communication and project management from start to finish. Below are some of Flowla’s standout features that support effective collaboration:
- Pre-designed templates for action plans
- Real-time editing and commenting on projects
- Task management tools
- Streamlines sales workflows
- Analytics about task completion and milestone achievements
Pricing
- Free plan features basic functionality (helps with internal team management but doesn’t include collaborative capabilities for clients)
- $150 per month for up to 3 seats allows the creation of customizable workspaces for clients
- $400 per month for up to 5 seats includes additional features like white labeling
Tool #5: Usersnap for User Testing and Feedback
Usersnap is a feedback and survey platform, which is designed primarily for product companies but can also be used by digital agencies looking for a tool to share projects with clients and gather their feedback.
With Usersnap, you can let clients leave visual feedback right on the website or design files, as well as create and assign tasks. The platform combines collaborative functionality with a task management board where you can prioritize issues and get insights into project competition.
Major features
Usersnap offers a robust suite of collaborative client engagement tools that streamline the process of gathering and managing feedback. These customer interaction platforms enable teams to work closely with clients, ensuring that feedback is captured effectively and projects stay on track.
By utilizing these client cooperation solutions, teams can enhance communication, improve project outcomes, and deliver exceptional client experiences. Key features of Usersnap include:
Pricing
- $39 per month for up to 2 projects and 5 seats
- $89 per month for up to 10 projects and 10 seats
- $159 per month for up to 20 projects and 20 seats
Tool #6: Webvizio for Visual Web Collaboration
Webvizio is a visual collaboration tool that helps build efficient communication flows with clients and distributed teams. It allows clients to leave feedback right on websites, screenshots, or PDF files in the form of contextual comments or videos.
The platform combines collaborative features with task management, letting your team and clients assign tasks right next to reviewed designs. You’ll have a task management board to sort and prioritize issues, track progress, and get notifications on completed tasks.
Major features
Webvizio offers a dynamic range of client interaction platforms that elevate collaboration and streamline project workflows. These collaborative feedback tools enable teams to work in unison with clients, ensuring that feedback is not only captured but also seamlessly integrated into the web project. By leveraging these cooperative client interfaces, teams can improve communication, address issues promptly, and keep projects on track. Webvizio’s key features include:
- Real-time feedback on live websites, apps, or files
- Design preview in different resolutions
- Visual bug tracker
- Tasks automatically connected to design feedback
- Time tracking and reporting to analyze project timelines
- Possibility to leave video feedback
Pricing
- $35 per month for up to 5 users and 10 projects
- $95 per month for up to 20 users and 100 projects
- Custom pricing and features for enterprise-level needs
Enhance collaboration and speed up your projects with the right tools
Client collaboration software can help you solve a lot of daily challenges. It helps leverage the power of asynchronous communication when team members and clients leave comments and perform their tasks at the most convenient time for them, without chasing each other for a real-time chat.
By choosing the tools that perfectly fit your processes and needs, you can save time spent on unnecessary calls and provide transparency to clients about the progress of projects and individual tasks.
If you’re looking for flexible web design collaboration tools, check out how Webvizio works and try it for free. The platform offers a simple way to gather feedback on web projects and act on them as fast and efficiently as possible.
