The modern customer wants a shopping experience where they can help themselves. Recent research shows that over 69% of customers prefer solving their issues alone without involving the company’s online resources. To achieve such a system, your business needs a customer portal to help manage customer and client relationships.
A practical approach to realizing the full potential of your customer portal is leveraging ERP in the building process. It provides access to real-time customer information, improved communication, and self-service capabilities for streamlined functioning.
Here is more on customer portals and how ERPs help improve the function.
Customer Portal Defined
A customer portal is a web-based hub allowing customers to manage their relationships with your brand. It facilitates customer functions like checking the status of their open support inquiries, contributing to your community, and following relevant knowledge-based articles.
A portal is a critical tool supporting your brand’s self-service functions in one personalized place on your website or mobile app. Integrating it into other systems in your organization allows customers to access and edit their account information
A 2022 Customer Experience Trends Report shows that 70% of customers expect firms to have a self-service portal on their online platforms. Unlike traditional support channels, support portals provide customers quick access to simple answers and resources for improved customer satisfaction
Why Do You Need a Customer Portal?
Your company needs a customer portal to provide clients with a more logical and, frankly, contemporary shopping experience. The portal also eliminates authoritative problems involving customer entries, like having colleagues in a common field despite them managing different customers.
Here are the benefits of implementing a customer portal in your brand.
Improve Customer Partnership
Adding a practical customer portal is one of the best ways to upgrade your customer support services. For a better understanding, you can think of the portal as a centralized location where clients can review all their information, from invoices to business agreements.
The customer portal supports all these actions without involving you or the available company resources. You only need to issue solicitations and transfer relevant archives.
Save Time
A well-managed client portal will effectively save your company time. The portal eliminates sharing company information through traditional approaches like printed media. Instead, it provides a practical approach to contacting customers using a simple or scheduled click.
Increased Efficiency
Customer portals increase overall efficiency by streamlining communication and support processes. It allows your customers to submit requests, track their status, and receive updates without directly contacting a customer service rep. You’ll also improve efficiency by reducing the time and resources required to resolve customer issues.
Data Collection and Analytics
Another reason your business might need a customer portal is to help with client data collection and analytics. The portal collects all customer data and provides valuable insights into their behavior and preferences.
You can use this information to make more informed product marketing, development, and customer support decisions. The data also helps create personalized customer experiences, improving customer retention and driving business growth.
Competitive Advantage
You might need a customer portal to keep up with the stiff competition in your industry. A modern client portal differentiates your offering from most competitors by supplying customers with a more convenient and personalized experience. It also demonstrates customer service and support commitment, helping you attract and retain valuable customers.
Cost Saving
A customer portal also helps make your financial functions more efficient by allowing you to reduce costs significantly over time. It works by automating and streamlining customer service processes, reducing the costs associated with customer support like infrastructure and staffing.
How Will ERP Streamline Customer Portal?
In several ways, your web-based customer portal interface will benefit from implementing a practical ERP system like GoldFinch. Here are the ways it improves your customer portal integration:
Access to Real-Time information
Implementing an ERP in your business gives you access to real-time information about orders, inventory, shipping, and other client-related data. This feature can be integrated into your customer portal, enabling them to access up-to-date information on their shipments, orders, and inventory levels. Both you and your customers will become better positioned to make more informed decisions.
Improved Communication
ERPs also support communication between the different departments and shareholders in a company. Involving it in your customer portal means clients will quickly receive automatic order status notifications, delivery times, and relevant information. It improves the overall customer experience and reduces the need for manual communication.
Self-Service Capabilities
The self-service capabilities afforded by integrating ERP into your customer portal are another way the configurations improve efficiency and customer satisfaction. ERP systems enable customers to achieve a support-free experience, allowing them to view, manage, and track shipments. It saves time and effort for both the customers and the company.
Personalization
A personalized customer experience is another crucial consideration most customers focus on when interacting with your brand. Implementing an ERP system helps achieve a customized customer experience by providing user-specific recommendations, promotions, and alerts. The system uses their personal information to decipher their behavior and purchase history before personalizing their experience.
How to Leverage GoldFinch ERP and Salesforce to Power Your Customer Portal
GoldFinch ERP and Salesforce is a powerful combination thousands of businesses use to realize their full potential and streamline operations. With GoldFinch, you’ll find a B2B portal that allows users to log in, place their orders, and adjust other account settings.
On the B2C side, it provides convenient access and implementation as it’s compatible with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Commerce Cloud. Being built natively on Salesforce helps, too.
Salesforce handles everything to do with managing customer relationships for more meaningful interactions. It’ll focus on analyzing the customer data collected and providing your team with valuable insights on the best approach for maximum efficiency and productivity
Conclusion
The modern customer expects automation and efficiency, and an ERP-powered customer portal is the best approach to take. Integrating systems like GoldFinch and Salesforce allows you to deliver more self-service capabilities and on-demand data access.
Empower your customers by contacting us today.
