8th March 2022 back to blog

Firstly let us recap on what a client portal is (or you may have heard them be called customer portals). Client portal software is a bespoke portal tailored to your business and clients to be a one stop location to upload and access documents, update task progress and make payments among other useful functions. Each user has their own individual log in details which enables you to control the exact access down to a tee.

Now let’s get into the specifics of how using customer portal software can benefit your business.

Vital Customer Support Functions

The beauty of customer portal software is the ease at which your customer can use it to help them. Customer portals are typically developed within your domain. Therefore a customer can go to your website and simply log in with their details. The best client portal software is designed and developed with both your business and customer in mind.

The client portal is created with your branding so the area is familiar to your customer. Along with the customer journey incorporated into every aspect of the client portal. Giving customer service solutions in a user friendly and intuitive way for your customers.

Customer support portal saves time and money for your customer service teams as many tasks and functions can be achieved all right within the client portal. Many businesses when they develop customer portal software include a dashboard for their customers. A dashboard allows for a customer to quickly see the progress of their order or project. The dashboard also provides prompts for the customer if they have any specific information or documents remaining to provide for your customer service agents.

As well as your team being able to quickly see if they or a team member has any outstanding tasks or received a customer update with their documents. Client portal software is a win win for both your business and your customers.

Customer Service Tickets

Customer portal software means the customer experience can be drastically improved, whilst also saving time for your support team that can be focused elsewhere. Client portal software can include an intuitive ticketing system. From each dedicated customers access they can easily log a ticket for the support team. Both your support staff and customer are able to see in real time the progress of open customer service tickets. As well as reviewing previous completed tickets should they wish to.

With remote working this speeds up the process among the customer support team, with a simple quick check to see if another team member has already addressed or working on a customer ticket. The customer’s entire service experience is well managed and they can easily check in for updates, without even needing to speak to your employees for an answer or progress update.

Client portals serve to improve customer experiences. If dealing with a large client, the entire team or a department could be given access to see one another’s tickets to save on duplicating a request or to see a previous solution which may help them. Saving time that can then be put back into the business on more important tasks.

Self Service Options

In recent years customers have come to expect instantaneous support to their queries and problems. You might be finding your business busier and busier and already have a stretched customer service team. Self service customer portals are the answer to this problem! Customer service software provides 24/7 support for your customers within the client portal software. Customer accounts can be accessed to view their documents and project progress without the need to speak with one of your team, which can be done on a mobile portal or on another device such as desktop.

Robust helpdesk software allows the user to view, edit and add relevant documents at a time that suits them, along with finding quick answers to simple queries. If you asked your support team how often they are asked over and over to send across a document to a customer that has lost where they kept it, you may be shocked at how much of their time this takes up! Now your team saves time and your customer is kept happy as they can easily access all their information without even needing to speak to anyone. Powerful customer portal software ensures customer requests get addressed efficiently and promptly.

If you want to take this one step further to improve the entire online support experience, a live chat feature can be part of the customer portal software. Giving customers direct and quick support from your team. As part of the live chat before they need to message a team member, they can access FAQ’s and support documents which may already answer their question. An intuitive customer portal software handles customer logins and identifies relevant answers and documents from their question, without needing to disturb or contact any of your staff! With live chat reserved for more challenging issues for your team.

Task Management

There are many businesses from small to large and as many industries as you can think of that can benefit from customer portal software which enables simplified workflows. Customer portals are used across businesses in the financial sector, healthcare, hospitality and tourism, marketing, property and HR to name just a few.

Here are some examples of what you can use your client portal software for within your business:

• Briefing: businesses needing to work with multiple suppliers to complete their project can detail their briefing within the customer portal. With progress updates on tasks accessible across the suppliers and your team if you wish.

• Payment: purchase orders and invoices can be shared within the customer portal software with notifications set up to alert either the customer or your team when an invoice is uploaded or paid. A customer portal enables task reminders to be set up to avoid receiving late payments, with prompts automatically given to your customer. Or equally to your finance team to upload a due invoice.

• Document Management: Rather than needing to send documents to complete over email or in the post, plus then again once the document is completed. The project management tool means a customer can easily log in and upload or access their documents. This can also include previous versions if required. With document management it has been found to improve customer satisfaction and retention as they appreciate the benefit of easily being able to locate their documents in one place.

• Signatures: If it is requires customer portal software options include allowing customers to sign documentation. This is useful in industries such as property, finance and law where documents regularly need a signature to proceed with the next step in the process. Secure file management cybersecurity means only those who need access to private and confidential documents are able to view signed documents.

Secure Digital Gateway

Some businesses may use email or even perhaps traditional mail for sharing important documents and details between their employees and customers. If this is you, unfortunately this is not the most secure way to collect customers data. Secure client portal software is the safest way to store and share private and confidential documents. The level of cybersecurity far out weighs the likes of keeping data on email or an internal file system.

Customer portal software gives both you and your customers peace of mind that the document and information shared is safe. A customer portal greatly reduces the risk of customer data being hacked or equally being misplaced by a team member with private & confidential information.

Also a dedicated client portal gives the ability for each user to be restricted to particular access. This includes different levels of management within your business team, then you can safely ensure only those who need visibility to a document are given the relevant permissions.

Want to learn more?

We hope this blog post has been helpful to share some of the features and functionality client portal software can provide to save both time and money within your business. Whilst improving customer service and customer retention in the modern world where flawless customer service is expected 24/7. A well implemented customer portal is definitely the solution to this level of expectation put on businesses today.

Our friendly team are more than happy to help. We would love to discuss in more detail how client portal software can benefit your business and your customers, get in touch today to speak with one of the team.