Communication with the customer

 Overview

Communication with the customer is one of the main aspects of a successful project. It is very important for the communication to be agile, straight to the point and on a truthful basis. Since we are professionals, there will be implemented certain flows in order to make this process more correct from a professional point of view.

Communication flow

• All communications with the customer must take place in slack / via email.

• After each call with the customer, there should be an email / message follow up with the bullet points discussed.

• Since we are aiming for less documents to be and all in one place, there will be a document implemented, where all of the main info aspects of the projects remain, such as – primal estimation, communication map with the stakeholder, list of developers, change request/bugs document, questions and answers.

• Of course, the project passport will remain in Jira, however this document will be shared with the customer.

• The change requests will be estimated one by one and added by the customer along with the description. After confirmation from the customer  – we will take it into work (this sprint or the next).

• All important decisions must be traced in an email / message in Slack. It is a 100% must. All agreed new changes/new requests with the hours especially. They are also to be added to the Project space as an update.

• All change requests from the customer are to be informed to the team.

• All calls must be in the calendar scheduled with all of the required participants.

• Never have a customer wait. Provide updates to this or that task before the customer asks you. Make sure that if you promise update within a specific period of time, provide it. Even if the task is still in progress.

• Whenever the customer writes a message, and there is no time to reply, add the eyes sign – this will mean that you have seen the message and will reply within a couple of hours.
  Always reply to the customer`s message within a small period of time (1-2 hours max, better immediately) – in this case the customer will see that the message has been received

• if the sprint is one week, a report must be sent to the customer – worked tasks and hours (hours are optionally). If the sprint is 2 weeks, then such report is to be sent once in 2 weeks after sprint ends.

• Every two weeks, on Friday`s, a report with updates should be sent to the customer. What was worked, what issues happened along the way (optional), what are the plans for the next week or two.

• Every client must receive updates on the open tasks every 2 working days apart from the weekly reporting. Deliver a short yet concise message that includes the name of the task, its status and ETA.

 Tips and tricks


Here are some tips

• Never promise a customer something that you are not 100% sure of

• If there is something urgent required by the customer, and you are not sure if it is possible, or need a tip, always check with your PMO

• Always take responsibility for any action or any promise you give to the customer

• Be always proactive, update the customer every hour for an urgent task if it is even in progress