Improve group locking & acceptance workflow

The current workflow when a student group is formed around a project is as follows:

Students join a group.
Students lock a group which triggers an email to the client which asks them to "approve the student group".
??? (we ask students to contact the client, but the system doesn't really facilitate this)
The client approves (or rejects) the group.

There are some issues with this workflow:

The distinction between "locking" a group to avoid others from joining, and asking for a client is not as clear as it could be (even though it is mentioned to students that a mail will be sent when they lock the group).
It is sometimes unclear to a client what it means exactly when they receive this automated email; the system will say they are supposed to talk to a group of students before accepting, but sometimes the students don't reach out to the client if they're talking to other clients, or this takes a few days longer which causes confusion etc..
In some cases the client will just click accept without talking to the students because of the email (which in turn surprises the students).
We would like to avoid situations where a lot of clients expect a student group if they "lock" multiple groups for different projects.

Therefor we propose the following revamped workflow:

Students join a group.
Students lock a group which prompts the contact details of the client. Students are asked to contact the client and discuss the assignment etc.
Student indicate they talked to the client and want to do the project which triggers an email to the client stating that the team they talked to wants to do the assignment.
The client approves (or rejects) the group.

Thanks to Taico for the brainstorm, and I'm open for further discussion 😄