A client video review workflow is the process an agency uses to prepare a reviewable version, collect scoped and timecoded feedback, consolidate decisions, manage revisions and record approval for an exact deliverable.
The purpose in one sentence: a useful review workflow converts client feedback into one authorised and traceable set of editing decisions. It protects the client's meaning, the production quality, the project scope, version control and the final approval.
Four words that need separating
Review is the client assessing a specific version. Revision is the agency implementing agreed changes within concept and scope. Change request is a materially new direction outside the approved brief. Approval is an authorised client representative authorising an exact version for a defined use. Blur these and every project becomes an unbounded revision cycle.
Prepare the review, not just the file
Define the review stages up front (internal, structural, refinement, final) and assign the roles: agency project owner, editor, client feedback consolidator, subject or brand reviewer, final approver. One person can hold several roles; the responsibilities still stay distinct.
Then tell the client what they are reviewing. "Review the content structure and selected speaker statements" produces useful feedback; "any feedback?" produces four stakeholders redesigning the intro. Send a version with a visible number, labelled placeholders, known open items and a deadline. A client should not spend time reporting problems the agency already knows about.
Collect feedback that can be executed
Timecoded and specific. Weak: "the opening does not work." Useful: "00:00 to 00:07, the opening introduces the company before the customer problem; move the customer question forward; required structural correction."
Then classify: required correction, required clarification, editorial recommendation, personal preference, question, or potential scope change. Classification stops every comment being treated identically, which is what makes revision rounds infinite.
Consolidate before anything reaches the editor. Duplicates removed, conflicts resolved, one authorised list. The agency can identify conflicts; it should not invent the client's internal decision, and the editor should never decide whose authority overrides whose.
Version, approve, deliver
Name versions so feedback stays attached to what it described (ACME_PRODUCTDEMO_02_V03_9x16_EN_CLIENTREVIEW), and never overwrite a review version. Ask for approval only on a candidate that is genuinely complete, with no hidden placeholders.
Record approval against one exact version: the file, the channel, the use, the approver, the date and any conditions. Statuses worth keeping distinct: approved, approved with conditions, changes required, paused, withdrawn. And treat channel adaptations on a scale, from no material change to full reapproval; approving a horizontal master does not automatically approve every vertical version.
Where ReadyForm fits
ReadyForm produces the artefact this workflow reviews: one complete edit per video, rendered from the client's takes, with every scene showing its source take so a "use the other opening" note takes seconds rather than a rebuild. The review structure itself (roles, consolidation, approval records) lives in your own tools; ReadyForm has no client portals, comment threads or approval flows, and this guide is the better place to build them. See ReadyForm for agencies.