Enhancing customer services is the most challenging task to do only if you do not know ‘how’. And in this article, we will introduce you to a one-stop solution for all your customer service problems – customer portals. You all might have heard about portals already, and the customer portal is one of the amazing types of portals. Let’s dig deep into this solution in detail.
What is a Customer Portal?
The first and obvious question of yours would be – ‘what is a customer portal?’ So, let me answer this for you. A customer portal enables customers to manage their accounts with your enterprise. It allows them to perform many activities. That may include checking the status of their support requests, subscribing to relevant knowledge base articles, personalizing their accounts, changing shipping address, managing orders, contributing to your brand’s community, etc.
Why Should You Consider Opting for a Customer portal?
You might be familiar with the word ‘self service.’ Vending machines and ATMs are common examples to explain self service. And there is a reason these self service machines are still people’s favorite. People always choose to help themselves instead of asking for that because this way they get the comfort of time.
Nobody likes to wait, including your customers. If they have a query, don’t let them wait till your support staff is available to answer them, instead provide them with knowledge-based articles, FAQs, ‘how-to videos, etc. This way, they just need to go through these sections, search for their question, and can solve it by themselves. Plus, your support staff can concentrate on more important work than solving repetitive requests like changing the passwords. Additionally, for knowing their order status, they can just go to their app accounts and track the order.
Customer portal lets you save your customers time which makes them feel valued, and guess what, you just save your loyal customer. There are many more reasons to implement a customer portal in your app and to cater you with some of those reasons, we have a list of benefits your business can get through customer portals.
Benefits of Customer Portal
Provide 24/7 Assistance
You can opt for having a chatbot in your app to provide your customers with 24/7 assistance. You just need to fill some of the common questions with their answers in it. This way when the customer will visit your site or app and will have any common queries related to price or delivery, they will not have to wait.
They can simply click on the chatbot icon and text their queries. The chatbot will answer their common queries with the answers installed in it. If there is any query whose answer is not installed in the chatbot, then it will form a ticket and send it to the concerned representative. So, the representative can solve the queries in their office hours.
Boosts Agent’s Productivity
As said earlier, through the customer portal, you can provide self-service options to customers. This will eliminate repetitive tasks for your agents. This way, they can concentrate on fixing significant issues and will also not get frustrated by doing repetitive tasks.
Provides Security
The customer portal has features such as encryption enabled to customers for letting them safely upload and access crucial information like payment details. It also offers more capabilities like allowing higher limits on file size. It allows customers to access their accounts anytime from any device.
This makes a safe and easy way for customers to upload and access important documents. But as a business owner, you need to make sure that you are opting for an excellent customer portal development that does not compromise with security.
With that note, we have a few points that you should check before investing in any customer portal. Knowledge-based articles, FAQ section, security is just a few of must-haves, look at the list to know more:
Must-Haves in Your Customer Portal
Should Provide Seamless User Experience
First of all, the customer portal needs to be mobile responsive because in a world where there are 6.64 smartphone users, you cannot just rely on desktops, right? Additionally, it should have a user-friendly interface and navigation. Make sure you have proper sections and drop-down menus for making your customer portal easy to use.
A well-designed portal also includes the option to contact customer support easily. So, make sure your contact details are visible and do not require any extra effort to find it as that will hinder the experience of customers.
Customize Your Portal
We all know customization always works as it allows you to cater services and features as per your niche and your audience. You need to check if your customer portal provides you with an option of customization. Because through customization, you can ensure that all your customers around the globe can have consistent and customized services.
Payment Module
Digital payment is a new normal. Thus, you need a customer portal that allows you to add different digital payment options in your app. You can even provide your customers with invoice details that will make doing payments easy.
Multi-Language Support
Many companies have a global presence which means it needs to provide multi language support. If you too have a global presence with customers belonging to a variety of backgrounds, then it is obvious that everyone will not be having the same primary language. This is when customer portals supporting multiple languages will come to the rescue. By providing multi-language support, you can make them connect with your brand and make them feel valued.
Easy and Secure Sign In
Single and secure sign-in options are among the basic and must-have features for any portal. You can provide them with personalized dashboards after they sign in. But providing a secure sign-in is where you should start with.
Wrapping Up
Trust me, if you want to survive in this competitive market, then you need to digitize your business smartly. Good products are not enough to do the wonders, experience is what stamps your mark in the market. You need to provide excellent customer service and enhance your customer’s experience by implementing new technologies and trends. And a customer portal is the best way to start. I hope the above-mentioned benefits are enough to justify my previous statement. You just need to ensure that you strategize before investing in a b2b customer portal development. Ensure that it includes all the must-haves as mentioned above.
