Communications Overview
Communicating With Your Client
One of the advantages of the Client Portal is that is can simplify written communications with your client, because all written communications are aggregated in one place.
This is how communications work in the portal.
Initiation of Communication - The client is the person who initiates the conversation in the portal by either sending in a general question ("Has the window trim installation been rescheduled?"), or an item specific question ("Does this sofa come in leather?")
Communication Notification - As soon as a client enters a question in the portal, it will be sent to the design firm. Designers are notified of new communications by two methods:
- An email is sent to the firm containing the question.
- An icon will appear on the Communications List View.
If you feel that the Communications List View is sufficient and want to eliminate receiving emails, you can set a switch for this in System Preferences.
Responding to Questions - It is recommended that designers not respond to emails directly via their email program. The better solution is to use the communication features in DesignSmart. The reason for this is that the client will often ask several questions, resulting in several emails. If the designer responded to each email, it would result in a tedious burden for the client to have to wade through all of them. The DesignSmart communication will make it easier for the designer to respond to all of the emails, then send back a single PDF with all of the responses.