Linq Office Services

“Just deal with it at the outset and protect communication from day one.” - Laura Waller, Director, Linq Office Services

Linq Office Services is a two-person bookkeeping and outsourced admin business that has been running for about five years. The team looks after other small businesses’ books, keeps on top of their inboxes, and handles credit control and bank reconciliation. That means constant contact with business owners and a steady flow of bank and credit card statements. When the firm decided its communication needed tightening up, it moved from WhatsApp to Qwil Messenger.

A familiar tool with no off switch

WhatsApp had always been the firm’s channel with clients. Then Laura ran an internal audit of how the firm handled data, and the app’s weak points became hard to ignore.

“It’s easy for everyone, but it’s not great. So I was just looking for an alternative to WhatsApp, and that’s when I found Qwil.”

Closing the gap before it mattered

Nothing had gone wrong, and the firm had already kept WhatsApp off staff’s personal phones. What worried Laura was the lack of any recovery option if something did go wrong.

“If someone loses their phone or something, we can’t really lock WhatsApp down. We’ve got no control over it.”

One deadline, one switch

Rather than run two channels side by side, Laura set a hard cutover and gave clients time to prepare.

“We gave everyone a week’s notice, and then we just invited everyone... you’ve got a month to register for it, because as of the first of this month, we’re not using WhatsApp anymore ... We just moved everyone straight onto Qwil, and that was it.”

The harder audience was clients, who use WhatsApp for everything. Explaining the reason, rather than just announcing the change, won them over.

“It took some getting used to... But when I explained why we were moving from WhatsApp to Qwil, they understood.”

The team needed no such persuasion.

“They love it. It’s very similar to WhatsApp. It’s nice and easy to use. It’s simple.”

Built around clients who are out on site

Most of the firm’s clients work on site rather than at a desk, which shapes how they respond.

“Replying to an email is a lot more effort than replying to a message.”

Qwil now carries the day-to-day, and email is kept for the longer conversations.

“We use Qwil for the quick stuff. Email is more full breakdowns of everything ... It’s our version of WhatsApp now, so it all just goes through there.”

Private where it needs to be, permanent where it counts

With the old shared business mobile, anyone who had the phone saw every conversation. In Qwil, visibility follows who needs to see what.

“With Qwil, I’ve got some channels that are just me and the director, so when I’m sending over bank statements or credit card statements, my team don’t need to see it, and [the client’s] team don’t need to see it.”

The same discipline applies to the record itself. On WhatsApp, the firm had no say over what people kept or deleted.

“It works both ways. We can’t delete our messages either. There’s a full trail, and we can lock it down if we need to.”

The result

The firm now has one place for client conversations, with sensitive documents limited to the right people and a record that can’t be quietly edited. Because the app feels like the one clients already knew, none of this has come at the cost of everyday usability.

“From a security and control point of view, it’s huge.”

For Laura, the case for switching comes down to responsibility.

“I think it is just a secure alternative to WhatsApp. I don’t see why you wouldn’t, because it’s your data and your client’s data. If something happens to it, it’s on you.” - Laura Waller, Director, Linq Office Services