Your client's choice, dated in the folder
Client choices
The client's choice, dated and kept in the folder
Offer two to six options, single or multiple choice. Your client chooses; the answer is dated and stays in the folder.
- Single or multiple choice
- Open to you as well as to your client
- Dated answer, visible to both parties
Replaces: A “let's go with B” lost in an email · A call nobody wrote down
No more decisions found three weeks too late
A decision asked as a question
Instead of letting a preference get lost in a conversation, you put the decision in the folder. It carries its options, its recipient and its dated answer, and that answer stays attached to the question that prompted it.
One question, two to six options
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The question
You ask it in one sentence, with two to six options. Each option is a label, as precise as possible: “Cement tiles” beats “Option 3”.
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One choice, or several
You decide whether only one option can be kept, or whether several can be ticked (the services kept, the items to price). Your client cannot get the shape wrong.
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The recipient
A named person, or the other party in the folder. One person is enough to decide: the first answer moves the request from “to decide” to “decided” for everyone.
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The answer
Your client ticks, adds a comment if they wish, then confirms. The choice is final; to change their mind, you ask a new question.
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The record
The answer carries the date and the person’s name, stays attached to the question asked and can be read back in the folder months later.
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The deadline
Optional, it triggers the automatic reminders.
It runs both ways: a client can also ask their professional to choose.
In practice
Choosing finishes and options (building). Tiles ordered from an ambiguous message are hard to put right. For a bathroom, the template catalogue offers a “Choix des finitions” (concrete-effect stoneware, matt white earthenware or cement tiles) and, for a detached house, a “Choix de la façade” (scraped off-white render, light grey float-finished render or timber cladding on the upper part). One question per choice, one answer per choice: at ordering time, you re-read the choice, not a thread.
Real estate, brokerage, wealth management. “Réponse à une offre” (accept, make a counter-proposal or refuse) for a seller, or “Choix du prêt” (twenty years with a higher monthly payment, or twenty-five years with a lower one) for a borrower. In both cases the answer is dated and named.
What it does not do
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There is no vote.
The first person to answer decides; a choice made by several voices is not supported.
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Options are text.
To show a shade, a façade or a plan, attach the image to the same post, as a document.
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Nothing is corrected afterwards.
An answer given cannot be edited; it takes a new question.
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It is not an approval of a document.
To have a quote or a variation accepted with a yes or a no, use the sign-off.
Related reading
The method (what a decision record must contain to hold up the day it is disputed) is in the article how to keep a record of a client decision. On a building site, see also site updates with your client, without WhatsApp and the page for renovation jobs: approved quotes and variations.
More features for your line of work
Your next folder, with nothing lost along the way
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