Customer portal: the online space that frees up your support and your teams
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- Changing service providers allows you to unlock fixes when the current team is no longer available.
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A customer portal is often the simplest answer when your customers keep asking you the same thing over and over again. The aim is to offer a web space where customers can log in with their own access details and find the information they need on their own - without having to ask for your support every time.
Why your customers always ask the same questions
In many companies, support staff spend part of their time responding to repetitive requests: product information, documents, milestones, estimates, and so on.
The idea of a customer portal is to centralise these responses in a dedicated interface, This allows the support team to concentrate on the more complex cases and on providing assistance.
(Useful insight) There is often an “80/20” logic: process the majority of requests via self-service, and keep the human touch for high-value or more sensitive issues.
Customer portal: definition and objectives
A customer portal (also known as a “customer platform”) is a safe place where your customers connect via a login. Once authenticated, customers are taken to a dedicated interface that can vary according to their profile and rights.
What can a customer portal contain?
The video cites a number of concrete examples:
- Product sheets (documentation, practical information about your products)
- Price estimate (simulator/estimate available online)
- Access to useful information in the right place at the right time
The aim remains to build a portal no frills, focused on what the customer is looking for.
Customer portal and intranet: how to combine customers + employees
An important advantage: you can also transform your customer portal into an intranet (or a combination of the two).
You can create access for your employees to :
- Add or update customer data
- Consult internal practical information sheets
- Structuring part of internal communication and knowledge
Web, mobile or both: choosing the right format
A customer portal can take several forms:
- Web application accessible as a site
- Mobile application (or mobile experience)
- Or a mix depending on your uses
The choice depends on what already exists in the company and the current habits of your customers. The important thing is to make access to the information as simple as possible.
Adding value with AI and automation
The video highlights two ways to go further:
A chatbot to answer customers' questions
You may integrating a chatbot into a customer area which answers common questions and directs users to the right information.
Automation (emails, notifications, workflows)
Example cited: send an email when a new document is uploaded, to the customers concerned.
Related service: automating tasks in a customer service department and integration of AI in a customer area
How a customer portal project works
The programme is structured as follows:
- First discussion context, objectives, documents to be produced, types of communication, frequently asked questions.
- Design first We'll analyse your needs, create a user path and develop a dedicated interface for your business.
- Validation design together.
- Development by the in-house team.
- Test by a tester to ensure a high-quality result.
- Making the portal available to your customers, with the aim of 1 to 2 months depending on the project.
Next step: defining your customer portal
If you want to reduce repetitive requests, save time and offer your customers a clear interface, the first step is to define your needs (content, access, automation, chatbot, web/mobile format).
- Take meet the customer portal expert and customer area
- Contact form for customer portal and customer area projects
To remember
- A customer portal is a secure online space (login) which centralises useful information.
- It enables reduce repetitive questions and free up support for complex cases.
- It can be combined with a intranet for your employees.
- You can add a chatbot and automation (emails, notifications).
- The project follows a logical sequence: scoping → design → validation → development → testing → launch.
Tell us about your project
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A customer portal is an online space where customers log in with their access details to find useful information. It is used to give customers autonomy for routine requests.
A customer portal is geared towards “customer access”, while an intranet also serves internal employees. The two can be combined so that your teams can manage the data and your customers can consult it. See : Combining a customer area and an intranet
A good service provider needs to focus on recurring questions, structure the information and offer an easy-to-use interface. An initial discussion with our customer portal and customer space creation agency helps you to list the documents, types of communication and useful automations.
In the video, the aim is to have a solution available in 1 to 2 months, depending on the scope. To estimate your case, contact our experts for the creation of a customer portal and customer area.
Starting from the real need (frequently asked questions, documents, itinerary), we can eliminate the superfluous and add what's missing. L’adding a chatbot or automation to a customer area can also increase the value of the portal.