The portal to customer experience excellence

Kay Oldham Date published: Dec 19, 22

Regardless of the industry you operate in, the ability to provide your customers with an experience that is consistent and places their needs at the centre is key to winning business and building long, successful and profitable relationships.

All relationships thrive when it’s easy to work together, and when there are barriers to effective communication, the negative impact can be detrimental. So, having the right tools in place to facilitate effective, two-way collaboration is critical in the customer supplier relationship.

We believe that a portal should go beyond a simple means to provide access to documents, and when used well, customer portals will create the foundations of a superior customer experience. Here’s why.

Provide everything – not just files – in one place

We’ve all been there. The meeting is in half an hour, we can’t find the notes from last time, pre-read material hasn’t been touched and where are the comments on the latest proposal?

It doesn’t have to be like this.

When everything is stored in a cloud portal, which everyone assigned to the project can access securely, saves hours of time – and unnecessary frustration. Using a portal which sits beyond the firewall of one organisation removes the tricky blockages associated with navigating different security systems and eliminates the issues with getting large files to each other.

Meeting notes, tasks and actions, contract documentation. Different permissions can be set for different folders depending who part of the project and access can be read only for final copies.

Naturally, everyone is conscious of the privacy of their data and whether there’s a chance it could fall into the wrong hands. Providing complete transparency of who has access to which documents, how they’ve used them and lock final versions to prevent unauthorised editing will provide your customers with all important peace of mind, and show you’re just as committed to their privacy as they are.  

Facilitate self-service

It’s not enough for the customer to always be right. To truly delight your customer, you must remove the need for questions by providing answers first.  

Using contact time with clients in an effective way, rather than needing to catch up on admin such as chasing document approvals, isn’t the best use of limited time together.

Providing customers with the ability to solve their own queries will enhance the client’s experience. Instead of needing to request a document, wait for a response and navigate through firewalls to receive it, using a customer portal provides instant access to reports, documents and information.

Add in the ability for customers to make comments on documents, assign tasks to you and easily add and remove the people they want to be involved on the project, and suddenly the customer is taking care of their own account management – saving you time while boosting their perception of your relationship – and leaving you to look after the value adding activities which make customers stay with you for years to come.

Champion convenience

Time is money, and your customer will really value as a supplier when your way of working is as simple as possible for them. An effective portal will allow the client to move seamlessly across their devices and enjoy the same experience whether at home, in the office or on the move.

The early stages of a new client relationship are crucial to long-term success, so implementing a portal which is quick and simple to set up without the need for special software or hours of training provides a great impression from the start.

And when project teams are constantly changing, subject-matter experts need to be brought in at the last minute, or the client needs to add in a new approvals process, it should be as easy as possible to do so within the portal, without the need for long-winded requests.

In summary, customer portals provide a dedicated space for your customer which will show them you’re committed to providing an excellent experience, and built the foundations for a long and mutually beneficial relationship for you both.

Try Huddle free for 30 days

Ideagen Huddle provides a secure portal solution which your customers will love. Try Huddle for free for 30 days to explore everything it has to offer.