The adoption of customer portals is reaching new heights. More businesses from various industry verticals are realizing their need for client portals. Businesses that have client portals already in place are coming up with new uses of the platform. Integration of customer portals with various business systems including accounting, ERP or CRM system leads to enhanced customer insights within businesses, leading to more informed decision making.
What Is a Customer Portal?
A customer portal, also known as a client or CRM portal, is a secure website which allows customers of a business to access information relevant to themselves, or even to carry out various processes securely online, including the execution of payments or creation of support tickets. This customer service software tends to be a good alternative for more expensive customer service resources, such as additional customer service staff. Customer portal integration with SuiteCRM has the tendency to not only increase the efficiency of businesses but also improves customer experiences. Such is the case due to the 24/7 availability of information while also enabling customers to make payments online, at the time and place of their convenience.
Using Client Portal with SuiteCRM
Using CRM portals has a number of benefits when integrated with SuiteCRM. SuiteCRM, being an open source CRM software, offers a plethora of integration options for the CRM software, while also allowing for great flexibility in SuiteCRM customization. One SuiteCRM integration option is integration of the CRM with a client portal. There are pre-built customer web portals available in the market, which can be customized to meet the specific needs of businesses deploying them. However, if you don’t find the one that fits your requirements, get in touch with us and we’ll design a custom CRM portal for your business.
Benefits of Using SuiteCRM Customer Portal
For each industry vertical, there would be unique benefits of using customer portal solutions. An example of this is CPA (Certified Public Accounting) firms using client portals to make crucial information available to their clients, that too from a secure medium. However, there are other benefits that are common among various industries. This article sheds some light upon some of these common benefits of using client portals.
One common benefit of using SuiteCRM customer portal, which is true for all types of SuiteCRM integration, is having all the information relevant to your customers, whether it is accounting information, support information or information regarding any products or services of the customer’s interest, saved within your SuiteCRM. This allows for better knowledge regarding business customers leading to more informed decision making in the Marketing, Sales as well as Customer Service departments. Read on as we discuss more benefits:
Enhanced Customer Experiences
Self-service has become a norm among customers, regardless if they are B2B or B2C customers. Client portals in CRM, as customer service software, allow customers to self-serve issue resolutions as well as carry out any processes, including payments or creating support tickets, that they might require. Self-service means that the customers will be able to do this at the time and place of their convenience. This would, in turn, enhance customer experiences as the customers will no longer have to go through the cumbersome processes of contacting customer service agents, either by phone or email to solve their issues.
Reduced Burden on Customer Service
It is a fact that most customers prefer self-service, meaning they want to research issues that they are facing themselves rather than getting in touch with a customer service representative. Through a SuiteCRM customer portal, most of the information that a customer might need is provided on one consolidated platform. Hence, this will reduce the number of support tickets as well as inquiries to customer support agents, leaving them with more time to efficiently resolve inquiries of more serious nature.
Improved Cash Flow
One of the functionalities of customer web portals is that they allow payments to be made online. This would be in favor of the business since payments can be received immediately for their goods or services sold. This might also be favorable since some customers would prefer businesses offering online payment options due to the associated convenience.
Improves Internal Coordination
Customer web portals are not only specifically designed for use by the customers, but can also be used by the employees of a business. Customer portal solutions allow various members of a business organization to view the various support requests coming from the customer service software and the progress on those requests, resulting in better coordination among the various teams. Moreover, certain SuiteCRM workflows can be designed to carry out specific business processes within the customer portals, increasing business efficiency.
Branding and Marketing Personalization
A SuiteCRM customer portal can help businesses achieve their marketing and branding goals. This is possible through customization of the client portal as well as having SuiteCRM themes and layouts consistent with the brands of businesses. The UI/UX of the customer portal solution should reflect the brand identity of the business. Furthermore, using the customer data available through the customer portal to execute personalized marketing campaigns is a method of achieving greater effectiveness in the marketing strategy of a business. Personalized marketing would include the engagement of customer support in up-selling and cross-selling, raising business revenues.
SuiteCRM Customer Portal in Various Industry Verticals
The use of SuiteCRM customer portals would benefit a number of industry verticals. Some of these industry verticals are outlined below.
eCommerce and Retail Industry
One of the most common things in almost every eCommerce business is the use of customer portals. These portals are used for a variety of purposes by the customers, including tracking orders, making online payments as well as to access invoices or any other important document.
Legal Industry
The legal industry also requires client portals. This is to aid in collaborations and interactions with the clients of the business. These portals also allow for the storage as well as access to important legal documents.
Transportation Industry
A customer portal for the transportation industry allows customers to purchase tickets online for various modes of transport, whether it is buses, metro trains or airplanes. Apart from that, customers can also get items sent or delivered using the customer portal solutions of transportation businesses without having to make calls or visit offices.
Healthcare Industry
Healthcare is one of those industries which has immense potential to benefit from customer web portals if it isn’t already. Patients, as well as doctors, can access medical histories through such portals, allowing for effective measures to be taken timely. These portals might also contain certain important instructions to be followed during medical emergencies, especially for patients of critical illnesses or diseases.
Financial Services Industry
A number of businesses in the financial services industry have adopted customer portal solutions in order to aid in several of their key processes. Customers can access important data from these portals, such as bank statements, or documents regarding insurance policies or mortgage agreements. Furthermore, certain transactions can also be carried out from such customer service software, including bank transfer as well as the payment of insurance premiums.
The use of SuiteCRM customer portal is not limited to the industry verticals specified above. All those businesses, regardless of the industries that they might belong to, that aim to improve customer service by making available all the relevant data to the customers using customer web portals can do so. Customer portals hold great implications for businesses in the future if they aren’t already benefiting from these portals.
Key Takeaways!
Customers are now relying more on self-service than on customer support for the resolution of their problems or to access certain information residing in the databases of businesses. One key to helping customers in this regard is the deployment of the SuiteCRM customer portal. A number of benefits are to be reaped of such a business decision. These benefits would include improved customer experiences and cash flows as well as a reduced burden on customer support resources. Businesses have been benefiting from the use of customer portal solutions for a while now. Some of the most common industry verticals that these businesses belong to include the eCommerce and retail industry, legal industry, transportation industry, and the financial services industry. However, the use of customer portals is not limited to these industry verticals. All those businesses that can benefit from the use of industry verticals are entitled to their use.
Get in touch if you’re looking for a SuiteCRM Migration, Customization, Integration or Support. RT Dynamic is a SuiteCRM Official Partner. SuiteCRM Customer Portal Uses and How It Can Help Businesses for a Free Consultation Session to analyze your business needs and find the perfect SuiteCRM for your business.
