Client Portal is not just a medium for business owners to converse with their clients. It is an establishment of a new relationship. The beginning of transactions through messages, documents and invoices. And it can be quite tricky to pursue a digital relationship like this one. You might face pitfalls in terms of support turnarounds, information sharing, and appointment bookings. And that’s why, you would need a client portal in place that takes care of all the above requirements.

Talking about client portals, the option you go for depends on the kind of requirements you have. For example, if you are looking for a portal that helps with WordPress Client management, just type “client portal WordPress” and you will come across several companies that can provide you with the same. Also, all of them will claim that theirs’ is the best portal in market, leaving you utterly confused. You will also find companies that provide an amalgamation of CRM & CMS.

Well, irrespective of the type of client portal you zero upon, what you need to understand is, the portal must render your customers with more access and control over the information that you share mutually. If you are planning on investing into a client portal, this article will give you important insights on the steps you need to take for ensuring that the portal is flawless. So, let’s go!

Stitch in Time

Remember the episode from the popular sitcom Friends? Phoebe keeps on hold for hours together just so that she can speak with a customer care executive and get her phone repaired before the warranty expires. She dozes off while doing so. Quite obviously, that doesn’t work these days. According to Zendesk, more than half of the customers appreciate if you value every second of their time.

So, whether you choose a WordPress client management portal or a Joomla one, you need to ensure that it saves time and comes with a feature that can take care of your client queries without having to pick converse on call or send an email. And in case they must speak with your support staff, you can provide them with the facility of scheduling appointments through your portal. It will save a lot of their time.

Ensure It Is Integrative

Unfortunately, having a client portal alone won’t suffice. You need to link it to your customer relationship management software. During the initial years of your business, working merely around a portal might work. But as and when your client base grows, you might have a tough time managing several clients, their queries and switching between your portal and other platforms.

If you want to keep this inconvenience at bay, you must ensure that your portal is integrative with CRMs and Google or Microsoft calendars. You will be able to find several plugins that might help you bridge this gap. Let’s say you choose a WordPress client portal plugin. Now, you would be able to find different combinations of WordPress as a CMS along with CRMs like Sugar, Suite, and Dynamics.

Make It Personalized

Ever had to deal with a client who doesn’t appreciate changes and asked for an old feature back? Well, if you have used client portals, a scenario like this is common. According to a Customer Service Trends Report by Kayako (2017), 90% of customers ask for brand continuity across different channels. So, even if you have a digital portal, it shouldn’t serve any less than your brick and mortar office would.

To bring this consistency across different channels, you need to communicate right with your portal developers and ensure that they personalize the portal with colors, logos, and features of your choice. Also, when you keep your brand impression unswerving, the clients would think of the interaction space as more trustworthy. They would also keep coming back without reluctance and would be able to resolve their queries with ease.

Let’s Conclude…

Like we mentioned above, it is must for a client portal to have certain qualities if you want to provide a glitch free customer support. And we hope that we provided you with some useful insights. What other qualities would you want your client portal to have and what steps would you follow to ensure that it has them? Feel free to share.