A customer portal is a dedicated hub where customers can
manage their relationships with your company. Learn why it's important and how
to build it yourself.
Posted by Hannah Wren, Content Marketing Coordinator
Last updated on April 18, 2022
Customer Portal
The research is detailed: customers want to help themselves.
69% want to solve as many problems as possible on their own, and 63% always or
almost always start looking for company resources online when they encounter an
issue. This is because it saves them the time it takes to call your business,
especially for simple questions and quick fixes. And self-service becomes
especially important for customer service during a crisis when you're faced
with a massive wave of support requests and customers who need support as
quickly as possible.
As the level of self-service continues to rise, the customer
portal has become an expectation for companies to be rewarded rather than
rewarded: 90 per cent of customers reported that they expect companies to offer
a customer portal. Online self-service in a Microsoft study If you're looking
to improve your self-service strategy, read on to learn five ways to use your
customer portal to build stronger, more trusted customer relationships.
What is the customer portal?
A customer portal is a dedicated hub where customers can
manage their relationship with your company, such as checking the status of
open support requests, following relevant knowledge base articles, and
contributing to your community. It connects your company's self-service
functions in a dedicated place that can live on your website and mobile app.
By integrating with other systems, the customer portal can
also allow customers to view and make changes to their account information,
such as changing the shipping address or cancelling a reservation.
A customer portal is a space that allows your customers to
find information tailored to your service that will enable them to find
information about their relationship with your business without having to ask.
Madison Davis, Zendesk Director of Content Management
Why are customer portals important in customer service?
Seventy per cent of customers say they expect a business to
have a self-service portal or content available to them, according to the
Customer Experience Trends 2022 report.
A support portal is an increasingly important touch point in
customer service because it allows companies to put the power in customers'
hands, giving them the ability to instantly access information any time they
need it, without the friction of communicating directly with your company...
While traditional support channels like email and phone are still crucial for
the most pressing concerns, they often don't give customers quick access to the
simple answers they expect, like how to change the password of your account.
Customer Portal Benefits
These are some of the benefits of a customer portal.
Increase customer satisfaction:
According to the 2020 Zendesk Customer Experience Trends
Report, while customers want and expect self-service, only a third of companies
offer any form. Customer portal adoption enables companies to increase customer
satisfaction and improve customer retention by meeting customer expectations
and differentiating themselves from the competition.
Increase agent productivity:
The Customer Portal takes some of the pressure off agents
and lets them focus on the most pressing issues by allowing customers to find
solutions for themselves. In addition to accessing the knowledge base and
community forum, customers can also review their previous conversations with
support, so they don't have to ask the same question twice.
By removing the unnecessary touch point to interact directly
with the agent, especially for repeat requests and FAQs, the customer portal
saves agents time and increases their engagement. It's also less expensive to
solve problems in a public place than it is to work one-on-one with an agent.
Provides an extra layer of security:
Features such as encryption allow customers to securely
upload and access sensitive information, such as a document containing
sensitive information. The customer portal also provides more capabilities than
other customer support channels, such as email or SMS, including higher file
size limits and access.
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