How to organize communication with the customer?

Question

CRM

It suddenly became inconvenient and unproductive to communicate with customers, who were under 50, and you need to interact with them and keep track of the state of the development process up to date at the same time.
Mail stops working as a communication tool after 15 messages are nested inside each other. Breaking down messages into topics and messages only increases and confuses the volume of correspondence.
How to unify the separate storage of files and documents - someone sends one TK file, someone separately and in different formats?
How to organize the demonstration of results and collect feedback on them?
How to organize joint participation with the customer in the testing process?

Answer 1

Andrey, you get a pool of different tasks and it is advisable to use different systems for them:
To manage communications with the customer - a CRM system (there are many of them, I work in bpm'online), it records all contact details, relationships between clients and contacts, schedule meetings and calls, it is advisable to wrap e-mail there as well.
The development process is a project management system, you can keep a list of objects in the CRM system itself, their status, deadlines and% completion.
Discussion of individual organizational topics will still have to be conducted in the mail - this is the most effective tool at the moment that allows you to record history and agreements. Breaking up correspondence by topic is a good option, at the end of the agreements - a summary.
Bring the discussion of project tasks into the task description system (you can use any wiki system, from paid Confluence to MediaWiki, etc., or use the NextCloud + LibreOffice Collaborate bundle for online team editing of documents - I use the second set).
Determine your format of TK and bring all documents to a single form and a single structure. And my storage with access control (I, again, use NextCloud)
Before transferring the result of the work to testing, create test cases, in which, on the one hand, the user's actions and the planned result should be described, and on the other hand, the user will indicate what he actually did and what comments. There are also systems for this, so far I have enough ordinary text-table documents - if you make technical specifications in the form of user stories, then you can then use them as test cases.
This process is best divided into three: internal testing + training + testing by the customer with filling out test cases.
You can also read the book by M.Kon User Stories - the process and organization of Agile development is well described.

Answer 2

The good old proven system of tickets. For an example, see how the issue works on Github.

Answer 3

I think the way out will be to work in a tool that combines joint work on the TOR and planning / control of tasks for the execution of this TOR (layouts, improvements, etc.).
Start a separate project for the customer, it has a Wiki, you can write requirements in it or you can import it from MSWord, in which the customer initially writes down the TK. There you can also discuss sections of the TOR, add layouts, discuss them, etc. You start the customer in the project.
For each section of the TOR, create tasks for preparing layouts, finalizing the TOR, implementation (development). There you can see their status (completed / not completed).
All this can be organized using a bunch of online editors (google docs, dropbox paper) and task managers. But, IMHO, it's better to have it in one service, for example, as done in scrumboard. We write requirements in the knowledge base, create improvements or tasks based on knowledge base articles - what else is needed?

Answer 4

Good afternoon!
Why not implement a CRM system with collaboration, project management, and external chat features?
One project - one deal, connect responsible employees to it, attach tasks, all necessary files, communicate with colleagues on all issues in the internal chat window in the project card.
Then send an invite from the chat to the client and communicate with him online, attaching and sending any files in one window.
It turns out structured work on the project within the company, plus immediately joint participation with the customer in the process.

Answer 5

I am using OnlyOffice. I don't like it, to be honest (especially the editor: poking the mouse instead of writing markdown without being distracted is terrible), but much more convenient than mail.
I think that in addition to OnlyOffice, you can find a lot of things more convenient on this topic. I once offered a choice of several alternatives to the customer, and he chose OnlyOffice.