Empowering Customers: the Client Portal

In the early days of the internet, email was the main line of communication between a company and its customers. While this can be an effective tool for outreach efforts, it doesn’t give customers quick access to the things they want, like status updates to open customer service tickets or account information. So if a customer needs this information, they must reach out to the company, ultimately taking account executives and customer service agents away from other work.

Many companies now employ a client portal solution, something that puts the power into the customer’s hands. Now they have the ability to login anytime they want and get access to things they need without having to reach out directly to the company.

Providing customers with a client portal has a variety of advantages over other solutions like email:

• On-demand information. Rather than reaching out to a company on phone or chat for a real-time conversation, or sending an email or web form and waiting for a response, customers can simply log in and find what they need.
• Less strain on the company. Although customer inquiries can often lead to opportunities for engagement, it’s unrealistic to think that any customer service department can effectively handle an overly high-volume of questions without greatly reducing customer satisfaction. One way to mitigate this risk is to provide a secure client portal. Building an effective one with client portal software will prevent a large number of customers, who just want things like status updates to a customer service ticket, from directly reaching out to the company.
• Security. Features like encryption allow a user to safely upload and access important information (such as a document with sensitive information).
• Greater flexibility. Client portals offer far more features and capabilities than email, including higher limits on file size and access to account information.