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Using Chatter Customer Groups to Manage Clients

by Adam Greco, Web Analytics Demystified

Having been in the professional services space for most of my career, I have found that one of the biggest challenges is finding a way to effectively collaborate with clients. 
As a Senior Partner with the web analytics consultancy Web Analytics Demystified, I work with clients large and small to help them improve their use of web analytics.  This requires a lot of discussion, file sharing and collaboration amongst my clients (both business and technical folks), partners and myself.  Traditionally, most of this collaboration took place via e-mail, but that was limiting due to the fact that it often excluded people from conversations and made it hard to see historical interactions.  Another tool commonly used was SharePoint, but it was often difficult for my partners and I to get access to a corporate SharePoint system.  Recently, however, I have begun using Chatter Customer Groups (provided by Salesforce.com) as a way to solve our client collaboration needs.  In this post, I thought I would share some of the reasons we have standardized on Chatter Customer Groups in case it helps any other professional services firms facing similar challenges.

What Are Chatter Customer Groups?

For those unfamiliar with Chatter Customer Groups, they provide a secure environment in which you can share files, web links and discussions with people from multiple organizations.  This information can be posted through a browser, a mobile app (iPhone or Android) or a desktop client.  Chatter Customer Groups was developed by Salesforce.com, the same company who created the leading Sales and Customer Service products used by over 100,000 clients.

As a consultant, I create a lot of document-based deliverables and client discussions that are confidential, but require scores of people to see and to add their opinion.  Using Chatter Customer Groups, I can now create a “group” for each of my clients and provide them a one-stop shop for everything related to the project.  Within the Chatter Customer Group, I upload project plans, presentations, share relevant blog posts I have written and host discussions about topics related to the project.  I can control who gets access to the group and invite people from many different organizations.  Having all of this information in one place that is accessible from any type of device has been a lifesaver in working with clients.

Why I Love Chatter Customer Groups!

Besides having one convenient place to collaborate with each of my clients, there are some specific Chatter Customer Group features that I want to highlight which underscore how powerful they can be.

  • Activity Alert E-mails.  When anyone adds a document or discussion to the Chatter Customer Group, all members can be notified either immediately or through daily digest e-mails.  Groups1This helps everyone stay in the loop and makes sure nothing slips through the cracks. In addition, there is a mechanism to “@ Message” someone, which is a way to post an item to the Chatter Customer Group and make sure one or more people are notified about it via e-mail right away.  This is similar to sending them an e-mail message, but has the added benefit of allowing the entire group to see the message and reply (there is also a way to send messages privately if desired).
  • Project History.  The other advantage of using Chatter Customer Groups is that you can see the entire history of the project in one place.  Often times, I have new people come onto projects weeks or months after a project has begun.  These folks are often clueless about what has transpired, but by using Chatter Customer Groups, new team members can review months of project documents and discussions and get up to speed quickly.  Another side-benefit of having all project history is that once you have this with a client, it is hard for them to walk away from the quasi-knowledgebase you have jointly created.  I have found that this helps me extend my relationships with clients (which is a good thing!).
  • My Own Client Feed.  Groups2Selfishly, one of the things I love about using Chatter Customer Groups is that when all of my various clients add items to their groups, I see all activity in my one Chatter feed.  While one of my clients can’t see any of the documents and discussions being posted by another of my clients, I can see everything in one place.  This turns my Chatter feed into something like a professional Facebook feed made just for me!  After being in a few meetings, I can open my Chatter Feed and respond to a bunch of different clients in one shot, all from the same screen.  No more hunting through e-mails and having to track down files!  Also, since I also use Salesforce.com to manage our business, my same Chatter feed contains interactions with my partners about contacts and deals.
  • File Management.  Another great feature of Chatter Customer Groups is file management.  Sometimes, I create files that are too large to send via e-mail.  Groups3Chatter Customer Groups allow you to upload files that are up to two Gigabytes, which can be a real advantage.  It is also possible store multiple versions of a file so when I make changes, I can upload a new version and keep historical copies of files.
  • It’s Free!  As a Salesforce.com customer already, I can get all of the functionality described here for free!  I can add as many Chatter Customer Groups as I’d like and invite as many people to each of them without paying a dime!  It doesn’t get better than that!

Final Thoughts

As you can see, using Chatter Customer Groups has helped our organization spend less time managing client collaboration and more time servicing our clients.  If you are in the professional services industry or simply in a situation where you need an easy, secure place to share documents and collaborate, I recommend that you check out Chatter Customer Groups.

 

---- About Adam Greco ----

Adam Greco is a longstanding member of the web analytics community who has consulted with hundreds of clients across every industry vertical. Mr. Greco began his web analytics career managing the website for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, became one of the founders of the Omniture Consulting group, and was most recently Senior Director of Web Analytics at Salesforce.com.  You can read Adam’s web analytics blog posts @ http://adam.webanalyticsdemystified.com.