From personal contact to digital ease: a client portal that radiates the same trust

Studio Mowk is an interior design studio led by owner and designer Maarten Makelberge. Studio Mowk uses Ziggu to give every client one place for plans, phases and documents. Since 2024, Studio Mowk has run 25+ build and interior projects through the client portal, with 40 clients using it.

• Sector: Interior design and renovation
• On Ziggu since: 2024
• Projects on Ziggu: 25+
• Clients in the portal: 40
• Used for: Documents, Conversations, Workflows, Task management

What does Studio Mowk promise its clients?

Studio Mowk guides people through a build or interior project personally, and Maarten Makelberge wanted that guidance to hold up when he is not in the room.

“I want clients to feel the care and guidance we promise, even when I am not there,” he says.

That is a high bar for a piece of software. A client portal is not a filing cabinet for a studio like this one. It is the studio’s manner, translated into a screen.

“The moment a client opens the portal, the familiarity and the care we talk about have to be present there,” Maarten says.

What was eating Maarten Makelberge’s time?

Repetition. Address details, project details, the same practical question answered for the third time in a fourth mail thread.

“Repeating myself was starting to get to me,” Maarten says. “I was looking for a way to make all the project information available centrally, in one place, so that everyone, the build team as well as the client, could find it and work together without information getting lost in endless mail chains.”

How does Studio Mowk use Ziggu?

Each project gets its own dossier in the client portal, and the build team works in the same one as the client. Plans, updates and documents go there instead of into an attachment.

The client can see which phase the project is in and which step is coming. That is the part Maarten cares about most, because it answers the question people are too polite to keep asking.

“If a client wonders which phase the project is in, or when the next step is coming, they can open the portal and they are up to speed. The portal carries what we say we do, throughout the whole process.”

What changed for the studio?

Maarten got an overview he did not have before. One studio, dozens of projects running at once, and a screen that tells him where his attention is needed today.

“When I open my screen at the start of the day, I want a clear overview of what has priority. The dashboard should show me straight away where I need to pay extra attention.”

The repetitive work moved out of his mailbox. The personal contact stayed where it was, which was the point.