A guide to client communication for the digital age

Effective client communication helps your company establish its brand and build trust among its customers to keep them coming back. And the benefits flow both ways: building a strong relationship with your company’s clientele opens the door to valuable feedback that can help you better understand your consumer base and offer better services.

If you neglect client communication, on the other hand, you could risk errors, misunderstandings, late payments, complaints and—ultimately—losing customers. Plus, you’ll miss out on the growth opportunities provided by constructive client feedback.

Communication can make or break the experience of prospective and current customers, so if you want to boost engagement, loyalty and retention, strong communication practices are key. Read on to learn the Slack approach to stellar client communication. 

What is client communication?

Client communication is a broad term covering countless communication methods and mediums. Whenever you contact a client, respond to a client’s outreach or try to reach customers with a message, you’re practicing client communication.

Communicating with clients can look like any of the following:

• Business messaging: Contacting customers and prospects directly through a platform like Slack, which lets you add clients and other external parties to your company’s workspace via Slack Connect
• Customer support: Addressing consumers’ questions, concerns and other issues via email, phone, live chat or social media
• Email newsletters: Regularly emailing subscribers to provide information on new products, promotions and company news
• Social media updates: Interacting with customers on social media platforms through posts, comments and messages
• Surveys and feedback forms: Using digital platforms to collect customer feedback and testimonies about products and services
• Text-based messages: Reaching subscribers with offers, updates and other information using SMS or mobile app notifications
• Webinars and livestreams: Streaming online seminars or other events to educate consumers or conduct product demos

Brush up your communication skills for modern work settings 

The channels may look different today than they did even five years ago, but basic communication principles persist. 

Focus on mutual understanding 

When a client contacts you or provides feedback, listen actively: focus on understanding their perspective and responding accordingly. Active listening shows that you respect the client and value their opinions. Practice this by: 

• Giving the speaker or their message your full focus
• Paraphrasing their message back to confirm you got it right
• Asking questions
• Acknowledging and empathizing

Don’t waste your client’s time

Your messaging should be clear and to the point. Leave no room for interpretation. Ensure your communication is as clear as possible by:

• Avoiding jargon and complex terms
• Stating the main point right away
• Using as few words as possible to convey your message
• Removing unnecessary details
• Using headings or bullet points for easy scanning

Show empathy

Empathy, or the ability to recognize and respond to another person’s feelings, is vital for any relationship-building. In client communications, empathy demonstrates an understanding that your clients are people with emotions, not walking sales targets. A survey by Genesys found that 70% of respondents think compassion and empathy are very important during customer interactions.

Personalize your delivery 

Relationship-building is based on feeling recognized, listened to and spoken to in a personal way. When communicating with clients, this means personalizing your messages. 

For example, you might reference previous interactions with that client to craft messages that are customized to your relationship with them. Likewise, you should tailor your outreach strategy to each client, since everyone has different communication styles and preferences. 

Respond promptly

Don’t keep your clients waiting. Respond promptly to show that you value their time and take their situations seriously. A CMO Council survey found that 52% of consumers expect fast response times to their needs, suggestions or issues. 

Business messaging and email work well to facilitate quick, conversational communication. 

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Client communication is a two-way street

Your client communication strategy should always be in progress; you should continually collect client feedback and make adjustments as needed. Here are a few ways to keep your client communications in tip-top shape.

• Regular check-ins and updates: Stick to a regular cadence for client check-ins. Use these meetings to discuss issues, provide updates or adjust plans. After each meeting, send a follow-up message to highlight the main points, including decisions, action items and next steps.
• Clear expectations: You and the client should understand each other’s expectations for communication. Determine how frequently you should send updates, which channels you’ll use to communicate, and the best times to reach out.
• Feedback mechanisms: Gather client feedback on a regular basis to take advantage of their insights. Consider sending surveys, conducting review meetings, setting up a suggestion box, or creating a poll in Slack using an app like Polly or Simple Poll. You can even use Slack’s Workflow Builder to automatically request feedback after certain client interactions.
• Make data-informed changes: Use a tool like Sales Elevate, Slack’s integration with Salesforce, to track progress with various clients. Sales Elevate gathers client records, accounts, opportunities and key metrics in one place right in Slack. Analyze the data to note which communication strategies yield positive results from your clients.

Which tool is best for client communication? 

Before you settle on the communication default—email—it helps to take a bird’s-eye view of the tools, flow and setup you need for long-term, scalable success. 

Pay attention to trends in communication tools

The best client communication tools for your business depend on your unique customer relationships and your customers’ specific needs. 

Email may still be the most-used client communication tool, but its popularity is declining. A survey by Project.co found that the share of respondents who primarily use email for client communication fell 11% between 2023 and 2024. 

Companies are more commonly communicating with clients through project management tools and productivity platforms like Slack. Of Project.co’s 2024 survey respondents, 19% mostly use project management tools for client communication, up from 11% in 2023. And 11% of 2024 respondents use tools like Slack to communicate with customers.

This evolution makes sense: email is limited. It’s slow, clunky and too rigid to facilitate a collaborative, real-time conversation. Slack, on the other hand, supports both asynchronous and synchronous communication, backed with airtight security, time-saving automations and useful collaboration features.

Connect your communication tool to your customer data

You probably already know which tech platforms work best for your company. So when you invest in a customer communication platform, you should choose one that’s compatible with your company’s existing tech stack.

Slack integrates with other platforms to reduce context switching, letting you focus on your message without having to worry about the medium.

For example, let’s say you use Slack Connect to reach out to prospective clients. Without switching platforms, you can pivot from that conversation to Slack Sales Elevate to view and update any records and metrics relevant to the prospect you’re chatting with. 

Implement a client communication workflow

Your company is unique, and there’s no one-size-fits-all communication process that will 100% work for your business. But you can use the following best practices as a starting point for your company’s custom process.

• Know your audience: Understand your customers’ preferences, needs and communication habits
• Choose the right channels: On a case-by-case basis, select the most sensible channels for outreach, whether through video conferencing, social media or a Slack direct message
• Craft your message with care: Any messages you send to your clients should be clear, concise, tailored to the recipient and appropriate for the chosen channel
• Pick your moment: Use the right channel at the right time to maximize engagement
• Track client responses: Pay attention to how customers are replying to your message, and respond accordingly
• Analyze feedback: Mine customer feedback and behavior data for insights into their expectations and how you can do better
• Adjust as needed: Use your insights from client feedback to refine your messaging and communication strategies
• Follow up: Keep the conversation going through updates and additional support

Make the most of client communications with Slack

Slack keeps you and your clients connected. Its intelligent productivity platform gathers all of the components you need for effective client communication in one centralized, user-friendly space: 

• Slack Sales Elevate collects Salesforce Cloud data right in Slack for simple access and tracking
• Slack Connect welcomes your clients into your company’s Slack workspace for seamless, messaging-based communication
• Channels make it easy to organize, archive and search within client conversations
• Threads keep your communications focused and easy to navigate with self-contained discussion topics
• Huddles lets you jump on spontaneous video calls with clients and coworkers for synchronous chats
• Thousands of Slack apps integrate your favorite tools and technologies for robust, dynamic and collaborative client communications in Slack

Investing in a solid communication strategy can make a world of difference for your company and its clients. Implement these communication best practices to strengthen client relationships and drive business success.