What your customers do not have is more time. Therefore, it is no wonder that self-service on the web is increasing in popularity. With a customer portal, you can increase sales, offer new services, and at the same time, streamline and reduce costs of customer service.
It is becoming mandatory for businesses to offer their customers a portal, especially today when your customers have more choices, more products to choose from, more information that facilitates the purchase decision, and an increased range of channels for handling aftermarket issues.
Here are 4 benefits of investing in a customer portal
1. Present information in an educational and logical way
Give your customers all the information in a structured way, from size charts to tables of contents to informative guides. Otherwise, they will look it up elsewhere, which can result in the customer choosing to shop at one of your competitors instead.
2. Free up time for sales and support
Once your customers have the tools to find answers to their questions, they statistically choose that option. Build a knowledge base with FAQs, user guides, and step-by-step troubleshooting guides to help your customers.
Offer customers to see their invoices, user agreements, loyalty programs, and give them the opportunity to use various smart tools such as configurators, quantity calculations, etc.
In this way, the need for support will decrease, and you save time, which can be spent instead on value-creating activities in your business.
3. Personalize the shopping experience
Offer your customers a personalized online shopping experience. Through tailored offers, individual cross/ upsell areas, targeted marketing, and tools to facilitate purchasing decisions, you can save time and simplify buying for your customers. With tools such as chatbots and voice interfaces, you can significantly enhance the customer experience.
4. Maximize the customer experience for higher customer loyalty
Customers who can solve most of their problems in a portal get a positive feeling about the brand. Customers appreciate all the services that simplify their everyday life or solve their problems. It contributes to customer loyalty.
For customers to consider changing suppliers, the competitor needs to offer at least as good a range of services, if not better.
Trendspotting
In recent years, we have seen that B2B customers have become more independent in their buying journeys and support contexts. We see that more and more customers expect to handle their affairs independently, whenever they want, and from any business unit.
Forrester predicts that in 2021, a more appealing customer experience will be critical for B2B customers to improve customer relationships and retention. CX is where you, as a partner, must strive to provide an exclusive digital experience and the modern buyers’ need for immediacy.
Challenges in creating a future-proof customer portal
However, creating a customer portal that will work both today and evolve as new business requirements emerge is not easy. Of course, you want to keep the cost down, but at the same time, you have to create a portal that can change quickly depending on requirements from the business and the outside world.
Here are some challenges that need to be addressed:
- Several system solutions will need to be integrated over time to be able to handle future needs and requirements
- A customer portal must often solve complex business logic that combines several business processes and business functions
- Support several different types of business models – requires a complete solution that meets both customers’ and the company’s needs in the short and long term
- Take into account both internal and external users with different requirements
- The user experience should be modern, guiding, and comfortable to get started with
Learn more about customer portals in our webinar series
