What is a customer portal?
A customer portal is a protected online environment in which your customers can view their data, documents and status: invoices, orders, work certificates, contracts, progress. They log in with their own account and only see what’s theirs.
The reason is almost always the same: the phone. “Where is my invoice?” “When are you coming by?” “Can you e-mail that quote again?” Everyone asks what someone is doing with you for half an hour, while the answer is in a system.
Build a customer portal puts that answer where the customer can access it. Saves your time, and your customer doesn’t have to wait for someone to call back.
Fewer phone calls, more trust.
It sounds like a convenient function, but in practice it changes your customer relationship.
Fewer recurring questions
The standard questions disappear. What remains are the conversations that really matter, with people who already know how things stand.
Transparency works both ways
A client who can see the status for himself doesn’t call out of uncertainty, and you don’t have a discussion about what was agreed when.
You see who’s active.
Who logs in, who looks to what, which invoices remain open. That is steering information you never get from a mailbox.
Typical features.
Access to information
- Download invoices, quotes and contracts
- Order or command status in real time
- Work certificates and maintenance history
- Documents and certificates in one place
- Consumption, progress or reporting figures
Self-service
- Submit a new application or order
- Schedule appointment at available times
- Update data and contacts
- Online payment of outstanding invoices
- Multiple users per customer, with their own rights
Under the bonnet
- Safe login, if required with two factor authentication
- Strict separation: customers only see their own data
- Link with your books, ERP or CRM
- Automatic emails for status changes
- Your own corporate identity, on your own domain
From practice: a maintenance company.
A maintenance company got stuck on the same phone call. Customers called to ask which work certificate belonged to which visit, whether an invoice had already been sent, and when the next turn was scheduled. Everything was recorded somewhere, just not in a place where the customer could join.
We built a portal in which customers see their open work vouchers, invoices and complete maintenance history themselves. The mechanic fills in the receipt on the spot, the customer sees him that same day. It was a stream of calls, and the discussions about “that was never reported” were over.
Such a portal rarely stands on its own. Usually it hangs on an existing administration via a link, or is it part of a larger custom application.
Clear answers to frequently asked questions.
How much does it cost to build a customer portal?
This largely depends on how much you need and where the data come from. A portal that shows invoices and status from an existing system is a clear journey; a portal in which customers also manage things themselves becomes more extensive. After one conversation we give a concrete assessment within a week. See sample paths and build up your quote.Can it be linked to my accounting or ERP?
Yeah, that’s usually the point. The portal retrieves the data from the system where they already are, so you don’t keep anything double. We build those links with error handling and logging.Is a customer portal secure?
Each customer only sees his or her own data; that separation is in the basis of the application, not in a filter afterwards. Login can be encrypted with two factor authentication, traffic is encrypted and who has seen what when is recorded.How long before it’s live?
A first working version is usually within four to eight weeks. Often we deliberately start small, for example only invoices and status, and expand as soon as you see what customers are looking for most.Will my customers actually use it?
Only if it’s faster than calling, which is why we’re focusing on the two or three questions that most often come to you, rather than on a complete menu that no one gets through.Who’s building it?
Altena, a Dutch software company of Marcel Altena. See our approach for how such a trajectory goes.Give customers safe insight and convenience.
Which question do you get most often from your customers? Send them in a few sentences, then we will outline how a portal takes away that question.