Keeping your clients informed when they must never see each other

In a group, everybody can see and reach everybody. That suits a club. It does not suit a client list, where the fact of being on the list can itself be private. Nobody should learn that a neighbour sees the same counsellor, or that a colleague's child has the same maths tutor.

So the shape to build is you, and a list of people who each deal with you. A space set up as Clients on Chickadee Bandit works that way. Each client sees you and never another client, a client can message you and only you, and no client's contact details are shown to another. There is no reply-all, because there is nobody to reply to but you.

Share one join link with each new client, or put its QR code on your welcome sheet. Review each request as it arrives, so the only people on the list are people you have taken on.

Collect less than you think you need. A name is enough to send a notice. Whatever else you hold about a client for the work itself belongs in the records your profession expects you to keep, not in a list built for announcements.

When a client stops, remove them the same week. A list that still holds last year's clients sends your holiday dates to people who no longer need them.

Announcements are for what every client needs to know once: you are away from the 12th to the 19th, prices change in January, the studio has moved to the room upstairs.

Post it once and give it an expiry date. The notice about your August week should be gone in September, so the next thing you post is not sitting under it.

Keep them rare. Clients read a practitioner who writes four times a year. One who writes weekly is treated as a newsletter.

The dates that matter to every client go on the space's Calendar: the weeks you are closed, the end of term, the recital, the open session. Each client sees them on their own calendar beside the rest of their week.

This is for dates that are the same for everyone. A client's own appointment is between you and them, and it does not belong on a calendar every client can open.

For those, Booking Slots is the better tool. Set it up in your own household, type in the times you are free, and share the link: a client books one slot with their name, and no account is needed to book.

Some of the work is shared: a group class, a workshop, a recital, an end-of-term concert. Event RSVPs asks each client whether they are coming, keeps a headcount, and reminds only the people who have not answered.

Set the deadline early enough to act on. If the room needs booking a week ahead, the answers are due eight days ahead.

Every practice has documents that every client gets: the terms, the cancellation policy, the price list, the practice sheet, the list of what to bring.

Put them in folders in Documents and point to the folder instead of attaching the file again. Keep it to what everyone receives. Anything about one client goes to that client in a message, never in a folder the whole list can open.

Clients rarely tell a practitioner what is not working. They stop coming.

Once or twice a year, send a short survey, anonymous if you want honest answers, whose results open only when it closes. Ask what they would change, whether the times still suit them, and what they would tell someone thinking of starting. It is three questions, and it is usually the only feedback you get before a client leaves.

It is not a practice management system. It does not take payments, send invoices, or hold a client's file.

If you are a counsellor, therapist or health practitioner, it is not a clinical record either. Use it for the practical side: your dates, your policies, a notice that you are unwell on Thursday. Session notes and anything about a client's health belong in the system your professional body and your regulator expect, and the rules on how you may contact clients come from them, not from this guide.

A client list where a notice goes out once and reaches everyone, your dates are on their calendars, a client can answer you without an audience, and nobody on the list knows who else is on it.

The test is simple. If you had to tell every client tonight that tomorrow is cancelled, could you do it in one message, without looking up a single address and without any client learning another's name?

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Event RSVPs
• Documents
• Surveys
• Booking Slots

Every app in the library is included with the household plan. Install the ones this guide uses and skip the rest.

• See the whole organizer toolkit
• Keeping a class's parents informed without a group chat or your own number
• Seven questions to ask any family app before you put your household in it