Scattered communication forces your team to reconstruct decisions from email, internal chat, and client messages. A useful chat system gives each conversation type a clear purpose and keeps it close to the client account.
Sydnee Live Chat has three conversation types: account conversations, channels, and direct messages. The rule is straightforward: choose the smallest audience that needs the discussion, then record durable decisions with the work they affect.
Keep relationship-wide updates in the account conversation
An account conversation is the ongoing chat attached to one client account. Eligible team members and portal contacts use it for discussion that belongs to the client relationship.
Good uses include:
- General status updates
- Questions about a Request
- Delivery notices
- File-location questions
- Follow-up that several client contacts may need later
The account conversation appears beside the same account where clients access Requests, visible Tasks, Files, and Deliverables. That makes it a stronger home for relationship-wide context than a personal inbox.
An account conversation is still account-scoped, not task-scoped. A decision that changes a Task or file should also be recorded on that work item.
Use channels for focused group work
A channel is a named group conversation for a project, process, client, or internal workstream. Channels can be open to eligible teammates or private and invite-only. Selected client contacts can participate when portal messaging and channel settings allow it.
Use a channel when the conversation has:
- A defined topic
- More than two participants
- Work that will continue over time
- A participant list that differs from the full account conversation
For example, a launch channel might include the project lead, designer, strategist, and one client approver. The account conversation can remain the home for broader client updates.
Clients cannot browse the team's channel directory, join open channels on their own, or manage channel membership. Add them only to the channels they need.
Use direct messages for one-to-one discussion
A direct message (DM) is one private conversation between two eligible people. Team members can message teammates or eligible client contacts. Portal users can message eligible team members, but they cannot message other portal users.
Use a DM for:
- A focused question for one teammate
- A private follow-up with one client contact
- A short coordination detail that does not need a group audience
Do not leave a project decision only in a DM. If it changes scope, timing, ownership, or the client-facing answer, record it in the relevant Task, file comment, channel, or account conversation.
Route one onboarding conversation
Consider a new marketing client completing an onboarding Request:
- The client asks which Google Tag Manager access level to use. Keep the answer in the account conversation so their other contacts can find it.
- The strategist, designer, and project lead coordinate kickoff dependencies in a private channel.
- The account manager asks the designer one timing question in a DM.
- The designer's answer changes the launch date, so the account manager updates the Task and posts the client-facing change in the account conversation.
The last step prevents chat from becoming a separate system of record. Live Chat keeps discussion close to the account, while Tasks and Files retain the operational decisions they own.
Set notifications by conversation type
Conversation-level notification options currently include all messages, mentions only where supported, or muted. DMs use all-message or muted behavior rather than mentions-only mode.
Choose settings based on the conversation's purpose:
- Use all-message alerts for a client thread that requires prompt attention
- Use mentions-only for a busy supported channel when direct attention matters
- Mute a reference channel that does not require interruption
- Pause Live Chat alerts temporarily when focused work requires it
Unread state remains available even when an alert is muted or paused. Email, browser, sound, and mobile-push behavior also depends on user settings and the current surface, so do not treat one notification preference as a delivery guarantee.
Avoid communication drift
Putting every message in one client thread
Clients do not need every internal discussion, and the team should not bury project coordination among routine client questions. Use participant-based channels for focused work.
Treating DMs as permanent documentation
DMs support private coordination. They should not be the only record of a decision other people must follow.
Claiming chat is attached to every work item
Account conversations are account-scoped. Channels and DMs are conversation-scoped. They can clarify a Request, Task, file, or Deliverable, but the message does not automatically become that item's activity.
Give each conversation a defined home
Use the account conversation for the client relationship, a channel for an ongoing group workstream, and a DM for one-to-one discussion. Then move durable decisions back to the work they change.
Explore Sydnee Live Chat to see the three conversation types. For a workflow that combines chat with Requests, Tasks, Files, and delivery, review the connected client portal workflow.
