Online Customer Portal | | Published January 25, 2019

Understanding the True Value of an Online Customer Portal

Too often, customers rush to the phone whenever an issue or question pops in to their mind. While having customer conversations is great, too much communication can be harmful and have a negative impact on your business.

To alleviate some of this communication, more companies are leveraging an online customer portal to stop mundane conversations before they even begin. These portal solutions contain instructional guides, video tutorials, essential company information, and much more.

Let’s dig in to understanding the true value of an online customer portal

It saves customers time – Those same customers who called you all the time can now consult the customer portal first for an answer to their simple questions. And, more times than not, there will be valuable information there that meets their needs. It may take a while to get these customers to use the portal, but once they do the “always on” 24/7 nature of the self-service portal will keep them coming back.

It saves your company time (and money) – Employees that answer the same basic questions repeatedly feel burnt out. A simple way to make them happier is by saving their time and sanity with an online customer portal to answer all these questions. In addition, it lets your employees focus on the challenging issues that are mentally engaging and have a bigger impact on the bottom line of your business

It’s a great resource for the sales team – Showing, not just telling customers how they can answer their own questions at all times of the day can be a valuable tool to closing the deal and beating competitors. It’s a great way to bring the value of great customer support to the forefront and use it as a sales tool. See, your department isn’t just a cost center!

It's excellent for sharing internal knowledge – Having a plethora of knowledge doesn’t only benefit customers. It also decreases the amount of simple internal conversations that occur, increasing employee efficiency. Instead of relying on knowledgeable employees with tremendous workloads to answer simple questions for their colleagues, it’s easier and more efficient to leverage your online customer self-service portal to educate and share information.

It can be easily added into customer support software – As more companies add an online customer portal, even more are now leveraging their portal via their customer support software. Selecting a support software solution with a built-in customer portal enables text snippets and links from the portal to be directly integrated into tickets and customer responses for quick and easy reference.

omnichannel-self-service Click here to download our whitepaper and learn how self-service online customer portals improve support operations!

 

In short, the true value of an online customer portal lies in its versatility. A great portal results in happier customer, happier employees, and an improved bottom line on your business. It can also be a great way to bring sales credibility to the customer support group as well as internal admiration with your organized knowledge.