Happy Support Staff, Happy Customers!

Many companies have Twitter accounts. They use the platform to interact with customers, and sometimes solve their queries.

Customers, in turn use the platform to show their displeasure and to alert others when a company gives them subpar service. Take a look:

No company would like to read this on their Twitter handle.

Would you?

Of course not!

You can check the entire tweet thread and see how the customer is dissatisfied and feels cheated by a DTH connection company named Tata Sky.

You might also have had a similar experience with customer service from one or the other brand and would have gotten annoyed. After a point, you might’ve also reevaluated your decision to purchase from them.

No one in today’s time would prefer or even tolerate bad customer service. Similarly, no company would even want to give bad customer service to their customers.

And now, in fact, customers without giving a second thought directly go online and diss the companies as you saw in the above example.

If companies will not provide immediate support or solve customers’ issues on time, they will go online and directly raise their concerns publicly. This does affect a company’s reputation with its other users and especially with people who are still in the consideration stage. Because nowadays we all judge companies, their product/service quality, etc. on the basis of their online profiles, what their customers have to say, and their Google ratings.

In the middle of all this chaos, there are employees who suffer. Especially the support department which provides 24/7 support to your customers.

Support staff is one of the most important departments yet they get less importance.

As an owner, it can be difficult to do a minute level of monitoring of your support department. Not only that but setting up an entire support staff also requires a lot of investment. An oversight here and there can cost you customers, social reputation, or even money. Moreover, as an owner, you might have seen your support staff getting irritated and exhausted because of the rude behavior of clients. This might have resulted in some leaving the company too.

To overcome such issues and to make sure that your support staff is handling your customers properly, we have a perfect solution for you i.e. “Portals”.

Yes!

A customer portal is a one-stop perfect solution to your support staff’s day-to-day problems.

If I were you, I would be thinking what is it? Why should you use it? Or which companies actually use this solution?

But don’t worry, we’ll be covering all your questions about portals in this blog. Let’s start step by step.

What is a Customer Portal?

According to the world’s biggest customer relationship management company Salesforce, customer portals are:

“Customer service portals are designed to be accessed directly by clients without the need to involve a service agent. Accessible through the company website, these portals operate completely over the internet, and include functions, databases, FAQ pages, etc. that are open to the end user. Clients simply connect via a standard web browser, and are able to perform a variety of self-service tasks.”

Sounds something your customers will love?

Imagine being there for your customers 24*7*365 days without actually having to invest in a huge support team.

Apart from that, there are many other benefits. Let’s explore them.

Why should you use a customer portal?

Your customers might not want to talk with your support staff every now and then for the smallest of issues. Most of them would like to resolve the issues on their own using an FAQ or a knowledge section of your website. Or they would rather choose to live chat with your support staff.

In such scenarios, customer portals will come to your rescue. Customer portal becomes a one-stop destination for your customers to get their queries resolved, talk to your staff if required, manage their profiles, quotes, orders, and much more. Because customers using the portal to get answers, here’s how your support staff will be benefited.

How will it help your support staff?

Less Ticket Generation

Having customer portals means that there will be fewer support tickets to handle. How? Because most of the issues that customers face, they would be able to solve them from the portal itself. This will give space and time to your support staff to attend customers more attentively and provide quality service to them.

Less Staffing

Portals will reduce your hiring costs of the support staff. This directly means less operating and training costs for your company. You can invest the same money in acquiring new customers and the portals along with your support staff will retain them for you.

Increase your Website’s Traffic

These customized portals can redirect the user to your website which in turn will increase the traffic of your website.

You need to make sure that your company’s website and portals have similar and good UI/UX and are user-friendly. When we say similar UI/UX, it means that you need to pay attention to call-to-action buttons, screen transitions, button style, button texts, the actions, etc. Additionally, you have to make sure that you have your company’s logo, graphics, themes are similar across both the channels.

Transaction History:

If the customer has done any online transaction with you, then they can easily check all the details from the online portal without having to call your customer support. They can even opt for live chat if they have any issues with the order or place an exchange or return request right from the portal.

This saves ample time of your support staff and reduces their burden. The same time can be invested in researching and learning something new that can help them enhance your customers’ journey with you.

There are many companies that use portals to handle their customers and decrease the workload of their support staff. Portals help companies to enhance their brand reputation as happy customers always have something good to say about your brand and they become your promoters.

Well, in short, in the end, it makes everyone happy be it customer, support staff and you.

About us:

CRMJetty is home to innovative customer relationship solutions. Our tools ensure that you can render enhanced interactions at each stage of your customer lifecycle. So, if you are searching for a portal development company, we are here to help you in building the right customized portal. We have served in this industry for a decade and have built many custom portals like knowledge sharing portal, self-service portal, web development portals,customer portals, etc. Get in touch with us to create customized portals and we’ll help you kickstart your journey towards growing with portals.

We have specific solutions as well like Dynamics CRM customer portal, SuiteCRM customer portal, SugarCRM customer portal, and many more.

Conquer the Next Big Wave of Customer Experience with SaaS Portal

According to a Walker study, customer experience will overtake product and price as the main brand differentiator by 2020. And the best way to go about providing a holistic customer experience is to pay attention to the overall customer journey. Maintaining consistency throughout their interaction with you and your different departments is paramount.

Sounds easy, right?

But, in practice, it can be one of the most overwhelming tasks you’ll undertake.

The main hurdle is the misalignment of the goals of different departments. Because of which, the right information is not passed down to the right departments at the right time. For example, your support team might not understand the questions of your customers if they were not informed of the latest developments of the customer account. This not only frustrates your support department but usually results in your customers leaving your company.

And I am sure, no company wants or likes that.

To bring all your departments on the same page regarding your customers’ journey, a SaaS Client portal can be the perfect solution.

Thinking how?

Well, first we will have to understand the concept of SaaS portals.

What is SaaS Portal?

SaaS is an abbreviation of Software as a service. Using this, your users can connect to or use cloud-based apps and software over the internet usually using internet browsers. Now, what a SaaS client portal essentially does is it puts your data and customers in a unified space that is made accessible to your customers as well. Not only that but it also streamlines the processing of the information in an organization. It becomes an effortless unified point of interaction for your customers whereas it brings all your departments on the same page.

Apart from helping you provide an integrated customer journey, let’s see why it is imperative for all the businesses, from small to enterprise level to adopt this solution.

Why SaaS Client Portal?

Mobility: Did you know that the concept of SaaS dates back to the 1960s which was back then referred to as ‘time sharing system’. Even though personal computers became cheaper to own, the concept of SaaS seeped its way back into our lives because of the mobility it provides. Having a SaaS client portal eliminates the hassles of installing and maintaining applications for your customers as well as your employees. Everyone can just log in to their accounts and go about their queries or work without having to stick to a stationary desk. They can even reach out to you while traveling. This adds brownie points to your reputation with your customers.
Pay as you go: Now this point doesn’t directly impact your relationship with your customers but it definitely brings down your customer retention costs. Since you will be paying as you add more and more customers and bringing all your departments on the same page, you’ll see a positive change in your customer retention rate. Most importantly, since the right message reaches the right department with this enterprise portal, there’ll be lesser support tickets enabling a smoother interaction with your enterprise.
Constant upgrades: There are constant updates for every software or app that you might be using. The advantage here is that your customers and employees won’t have to go through the tedious process of first downloading the updated software, then installing the same in their PCs/laptops. With a SaaS customer portal, they’ll be using the upgraded version all the time without any of the above mentioned hassles.
Data management: This portal works as a data manager for both parties. You and your customers. Using this your customers can manage their personal data, orders, invoices, and if you have vendors, they can manage quotes, proposals, etc. Not only this but since this solution is customizable you can also integrate it with your CMS and manage your content from it.
Fully customizable & scalable: Every company plans on growing and expanding their customer base. So, if you invest in a static solution at the beginning that works for you when you have a limited number of customers, then you are going to face problems sooner than you expect. Apart from the future solution costing you more money plus data migration, there can be a lot of frustration from your existing customers for this switch. Because they will have to learn and understand new navigation and logic. Basically, what we are trying to suggest is that it will be a better idea to go for a solution that is scalable and customizable to accommodate your growing business’ needs.
Customer self-serve: A SaaS enterprise portal bridges the gap between your customers and your support staff. It gives your customers the liberty to play around the customer portal and look for answers to their questions as well as get a better hang of your products or services. With the knowledge base, they can simply type in their queries and get their answers. They can also update their details without having to get on calls or wait for your emails.
No hassles of hosting & maintenance: Since the software is hosted on your solution provider’s servers, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of the hosting and maintenance problems. However, make sure you are choosing a reliable solution provider as you might require prompt services in case anything goes sideways. Also, 24*7 services if you are offering the same to your customers. Otherwise, it will be hard for you to maintain a quality level in handling your customers and their queries.
Communication consistency: Since all your departments will have their separate logins and all the required information will be shared with them, it will be easier for them to communicate well with your customers. They will know exactly where the customer is in their journey, what price has been quoted, and what their previous queries were. All the departments across the company will have a 360-degree view of the accounts which in turn helps your company grow rapidly.

Before investing, do your due diligence and check if they have all the below-mentioned features to help you achieve your targets.

Must-have Features in SaaS Enterprise Portal

Secure customer log-in: Secure and single customer log-in to ensure your customers that their data is in safe hands and isn’t being misused for targeted marketing. This will not only build your brand’s credibility but will also get you a positive word of mouth.
Control over access: It goes without saying that you can’t share all your CRM data with your customers. Hence a solution like the SaaS enterprise customer portal should give you control over access of the data. It can have role-based accessibility feature as well where you can add contacts in a certain group and provide access accordingly.

Enterprise search: When we say enterprise search, it means the functionality of global search where customers could simply type in their query terms in the search bar and the portal fetches results from all over the database to help your customer navigate seamlessly through the portal.
Customizable page layouts: Every page or every module is different and serves different purposes. Some are to communicate with customers while some are to maintain CRM records and data. So, it is not possible that the default layout goes with every one of them. For proper functioning of any module, you’ll need to keep the right buttons, text, and actions at the right place and hence in such cases, you will need the feature of customizable page layouts in your SaaS customer portal.
Clean and intuitive dashboard: More than the right layout of the page, your portal needs a clean and intuitive design language throughout. Especially when it comes to the dashboard as it is the first thing your customers will see when they log in. So, make sure your SaaS portal has a clean, informative and intuitive dashboard for easy operations.
Integrated calendar: There is always some kind of interaction happening between you and your customers. Be it a quick call, weekly newsletter, unresolved support ticket, an appointment or a meeting. To give your teams as well as your customers an overview of these interactions, an integrated calendar is a must. This will allow your teams to manage their schedules effectively.
Knowledge base: Having an integrated knowledge base is a must as this is the basic functionality that all the companies provide at this point. It encourages your customers to self-serve and reduces the friction between them and your support team. As a result, your support team can take proactive measures and dig around to enhance your customers’ overall journey with you and lifetime value.

Wrapping up

In the era where every small, medium, and enterprise company is becoming customer-centric, no company can miss out on the opportunities that come with staying in touch with their customers.

A SaaS customer is definitely an upgrade from emails, calls, or online chat which your customers are eagerly waiting for.

So, let’s catch your business up to speed with a cloud-based customer portal!

Things to Consider While Hiring Web Portal Development Company

Use of portals is increasing rapidly. There are many ways these portals are helping companies connect with their customers more efficiently and provide support around the clock.

There are many advantages of having a portal and companies are trying to make the most of it. There are various types of portals available in the market and you can use them according to your requirement.

Going one step ahead, I would like to discuss custom-made web portals.

Yes! You heard it right. Custom made portal is a portal tailored to your requirement.

I know there is no headache at all with readymade portals. All you need to do is purchase it, make some tweaks here and there and integrate it with your software and you can start using it.

But, the advantage of using a custom-made portal is you can easily decide the features according to your operational requirement. Work closely with a web portal development company and you can change your requirements according to your usage.

There are many factors which you need to consider while working with a web portal development company.

In this article I am going to discuss a few things you must consider while working with a web portal development company:

Experience:

This is the first and the most important thing. You need to make sure that the company you are hiring has sufficient experience in web portal development.

Since this is your first time, you might not know exactly what you are looking for, someone with experience in the industry can guide you. This will help you streamline your requirements of the portal as well.

Application Integration:

You will often process cross platform systems, so in such scenarios you might need to integrate web portal with other databases. So you need to check what integrations they are comfortable with and if those fit in your workflow.

Easy to use:

This again is an important factor you need to consider. After creating the portal, you need to make sure that it is easy for your team members to use it.

You cannot develop a product which requires specialists to use and maintain. This will create chaos in your company. Hence, you need to make sure that the portal is easy to use, configure and manage by your employees and even customers.

Check their documentation:

Doing proper documentation is an essential part of any company. As a company you will need to make sure that you check the software requirement specification, user manual, scope of work etc.

These documents will give you insights about the portal which is under development. It will give you in-depth knowledge about each and every feature of the portal. Additionally, it will help you to actively contribute to the portal development process.

Security features:

Security is the essential part of our lives. We as a company need to make sure that we protect the data of our customers.

Hence, having strong security features in your portal is necessary. You need to make sure that the company which is helping you develop the portal is able to implement security options from 2FA to biometric lock.

Miscellaneous:

You need to look after other miscellaneous factors like:

Company’s market reputation for developing portals.
Case studies: it is very important to look at any company’s case studies because it gives you insights about their work and clients.
Support and Service terms and conditions.
Software upgrades.
Whether they provide product training?

These miscellaneous factors play a major role when working with any company. Because, when you shake hands with any company, it affects your company’s brand and reputation.

Final words:

Having portals and working with them is always fun and helps your business a lot. Hiring another company for web portal development is acceptable. But, you need to consider the above points which are discussed. Why not use the freedom of developing your own custom-made portals and easily add or delete things you desire?

Types of Dynamics 365 Portal Add-ons

Dynamics 365 have multiple types of portals. Each serves its own unique purpose. The one that you need will depend on the use case you have. You can choose the portal that addresses your exact pain points. Here’s a breakdown of the different types so that it can help you make a decision:

Customer Self-Service Portal
Employee Self-Service Portal
Community Portal
Partner Portal
Field Service and Project Service Automation Portal

Customer Self-Service Portal

Customer Self-Service Portal helps you guide your customers even when you are not sitting at your desk. A streamlined knowledge base helps them get answers to their queries when they cannot reach the support staff. The basic availability of a webstore being 24/7, support or assistance should also be available 24/7.

Such a self service portal encourages problem solving by providing relevant solutions without the intervention of your staff. This portal includes forums wherein customers can have discussions and there is community building through problem solving. Other interactions like polls, ratings and comments also help the company or organization get essential feedback.

Employee Self-Service Portal

Employee self-service portal can be used as an internal space for employees to share knowledge, manage their tasks, and have certain interactions with the CRM. They can use it to access answers to FAQs, give feedback, and develop a community of their own.

HR for Dynamics which is a self service portal for employees is an efficient platform that simplifies tasks for everyone, especially HR and managers. Employees have the freedom to manage their exchange with the HR department regarding leave applications, activities, travel expenses or other expenses etc, right from within the portal. Apart from that, they can easily change personal information in case of any changes in their contact details or bank details.

For the managers, this gives them the freedom to perform their managerial tasks. They can get their team’s summary front and center, including each members’ leave details, salary, deadlines, certification details etc. This helps them make a more accurate analysis of the team’s performance.

Community Portal

Community portals are primarily like a virtual community, wherein they function like one. A community portal of an organization invites discussions, blogs and articles, and enables polls, ratings and provides a space for comments for feedback.

Such a portal can encourage users to promote the organization as they become unofficial ambassadors and influencers.

Partner Portal

Partner portal extends a hand to your partners to bring them on to your organization in a more meaningful way. They can access various components with this like orders, invoices, payment history, etc., all the things that are relevant to their functions in the organization.

This helps partners get an insight into lead distribution, deal and opportunity tracking, so they use that feedback to improve their operations whenever possible. With account management capability, partners can update any relevant details, have access to their contract details etc.

Multi-partner collaboration facilitates a number of partners to work together on a single opportunity. This way, all of them can get the sales and experience.
The platform of partner lifecycle management can be used for recruitment and streamlines your operations of the partner channel.
The partner portal also maximizes on deal protection and authorization for discounts, and benefits and gives vendors visibility in the customer pipeline. This happens via deal registration.

Field Service and Project Service Automation Portal

Field service portal gives an all-around view of assets, invoices, work orders and agreements. It is available when customers purchase the Field Service, Project Service Automation or an Enterprise plan.

The Project Service Automation portal, on the other hand, gives partners project information like bookable resources, quotes and invoices.

How to Install the Default Portal Add-On for Dynamics 365

When it comes to integrating a customer portal, it is important to take into consideration that it is one that fits well into the workflow of your business. You should also take care that it functions smoothly with your Dynamics CRM. It should be fast, secure, customizable and with a range of functions.

Dynamics 365 has a neat portal solution. Since it is an Add-on solution, you need to take certain steps to add it to your CRM, and then install it. Here’s a step-by-step guide for installing the Dynamics 365 default portal Add-on:

Installing the Default Portal Add-On for Dynamics 365

Steps to install Dynamics 365 default portal add-on:

Step 1: Sign in to Microsoft 365 admin center.

Step 2: From the navigation column on the left, select Show all -> select All admin centers.

Step 3: From the list of all admin centers, select Dynamics 365.

Step 4: On the Dynamics 365 Administration Center page, select the Applications tab

Step 5: Click on Portal Add-On under Manage applications. Portal Add-On is set to ‘Not Configured’. Now click on the Manage button on the right side.

Step 6: In the General Settings section, enter a Name and other details like Type (Trial or Production), Portal URL for your portal.

Step 7: Select a Dynamics 365 instance from which you can install a portal, select language.

Step 8: Select Portal Audience & Portal to be deployed & submit

It might take time to configure the portal.

Step 9: Once the portal is created, you can see the Base Portal URL. Click on it to see your Dynamics 365 Portal.

After portal installation, a new tile will be added in Dynamics 365 called “Portals”.

If you want more flexibility, and want to go deeper into the features that a portal can provide, then you can look at a third party integration. Here’s a brief introduction to Dynamics 365 WordPress Customer Portal:

Dynamics 365 WordPress Customer portal

Dynamics 365 WordPress customer portal is a convenient third party solution for enhancing your customer service. It provides a number of features that are either not available in the default portal or have certain limitations. If you are to go deeper into why to use this third party solution, here are a few reasons:

Secure and scalable:

Security cannot be something anyone should compromise on. But that doesn’t mean that the secure option limits you to a certain number of users. Your portal should be able to scale with your expanding customer base instead of limiting you due to high costs.

Multi Language support:

Any portal ought to be available in multiple languages. This helps establish connections and trust with your customers. Having anything in the language that one speaks in, aids in the buying decision.

Credentials for users:

Generating credentials for a huge number of people is a part of the ecommerce business. It shouldn’t be a hassle nor should it be a major cost.

Customization:

A portal has to reflect the style of your website. Since this portal is integrated with WordPress, you have the freedom to customize it. Configure a layout of your choice based on the modules you want. Have a dashboard of your design for what you think your customers want up front, etc.

Case management:

If the portal can handle cases, it would reduce a lot of work that your staff has to do. There would no repeated queries and customers would be able to find what they are looking for instead of raising a ticket for an issue that has already been solved.

The purpose of a Dynamics 365 WordPress Customer Portal is how it helps you in providing support to your customers. A third party solution brings more options for you as compared to the default option. It can offer equivalent security, plus more customization options in line with your website. Once you go through the differences and discern what you need in your workflow, it will be easier to decide what you want to go with.

How to Install PowerApps Portal in Dynamics 365 CRM

In order for you to provide your customers with exceptional service, you will need to do things that are above and beyond the basics. You will need to provide certain things that make their interaction with you more efficient and frictionless. Let’s see the steps of how you can install and activate the customer portal with Microsoft Power Apps and Dynamics 365 WordPress Customer portal.

Power Apps by Microsoft provides a new portal option with Dynamics 365 CRM. If you want to activate it, here are the steps for it. You can find steps to install the Power Apps portal from its backend.

Provision a PowerApps portal steps

Steps to install PowerApps portal:

Step 1: Sign into Power Apps.

Step 2: Select your environment from top right in which you have to install the portal.

Step 3: If you want to create a blank portal, click on Portal from blank.

Step 3: Click on All Templates to create a portal from default portal templates.

Step 4: Enter Name and Address, then click on create.

After you click on Create, the portal will begin provisioning and the status will be displayed in notifications.

After the portal is provisioned successfully, the status is updated and the portal is displayed in the grid:

From the More (…) option, you can edit or browse the portal. Browse the portal to see your Dynamics 365 Portal.

Apart from that, if you want to go for a third party option that can work with your WordPress frontend, there are steps to install and activate a Dynamics 365 WordPress customer portal from the WordPress backend.

Dynamics 365 WordPress Customer Portal Installation steps

Dynamics CRM Plug-in Installation

To install ‘Dynamics CRM Customer Portal’ plugin, the following steps have to be followed:

Step 1: On purchasing the plugin, you will get a zip file named DynamicsCRM-Customer-Portal-v3.0.zip

Step 2: Login into your CRM and click on Settings → Solutions.

Step 2: If you are in a unified interface, click on the Settings icon given on the right side of the title bar. Then click on Advanced Settings.

Step 3: Click on Import to upload and install the Solution.

Step 4: Click on the Browse button and choose the Package Zip File for Dynamics CRM Customer Portal from the Import Solution Window.

Click on Next for further processing.

Step 5: Check the box to enable any SDK message processing steps included in the solution and click on the Import button to import the solution.

Step 6: Click on Close after a successful completion message is displayed.

Once you import the solution, it will be displayed in the solutions grid view.

WordPress Manual Plugin installation

Step 1: To start with the installation, log in as Administrator into WordPress. Hover over Plugins and click on Add New to install the package.

Step 2: To upload the plugin, click on the Upload Plugin button.

Step 3: Now, click on the Browse button and browse the zip file. After uploading the package, click on the Install Now button to install the package.

Step 4: Navigate to Installed plugins. Here, you can see that Dynamics CRM Customer Portal Plugin was successfully installed. But it is still inactive.

Click on Activate to activate the plugin.

The Dynamics 365 WordPress customer portal allows for more flexibility, gives you more features and is scalable and customizable as you go. It can help you get things done and bridge the gap with your customers.

Here’s Why Customer-Centric Firms are At the Top

Do you remember the days when ordering food was a newly introduced concept?

Yes? What came to your mind? Mobile applications?

Nope. That’s not it. Let’s backtrack to the beginning of the food ordering and delivery industry.

Phone calls.

Yes!

We used to order food over phone calls. Ask all the 90’s kids. They know the struggle. It was quite real. Where do you think the term Hangry came from!

Well, before mobile apps took over, we used to wait for good 45 mins to an hour if not more just for a single dish. There were yellow pages involved, a lot of back and forth, waiting, bad food, some yelling, and plain dissatisfaction.

And the problems would still exist. Like returning that order or food, asking for your money back, and then going through the same process again because you are still hungry. Remember?

At that point, it was natural to feel the need to never order food and just make an effort to go out if craving anything specific.

But, now those days are gone. Today we are living in an era of technology. It has made our lives easy. How? Purchasing things like gadgets, household appliances, clothes, medicines, etc. be it big or small everything now is just a few clicks away.

Ordering food too!

Continue reading the article to find out how technology has revolutionized the food delivery industry and made some hungry people very happy, while I go and grab my wrap that I ordered only 20mins back!

Apart from ordering food online, you can now, live track it, cancel it easily, talk to the support staff, the delivery person, change address and many other things.

The first company to introduce online food ordering was FoodPanda but soon due to some bad operational decisions, ineffective communication, and technical issues, they failed to make a dent in the industry.

Soon after, Zomato launched its online food ordering application. And to no one’s surprise they became a huge success.

How?

By providing easy to use and hassle-free user experience. And exceptional 24*7*365 chat support.

How do they manage to be there for their customers all the time?

Knowledge/support portal & customer portal.

These portals help you bridge the gap between you and your customers by minimizing the queries and request load and enabling customers to self-serve. This not only makes it easy for people ordering food to solve their issues that might include instructions to the delivery person, change of address or order, without having to wait for a single minute but also renders complete customer satisfaction.

Apart from self-serving, these support portals can also serve as a ticketing system where your customers can add queries for which they couldn’t find any answers. And if the customers want to talk to directly talk to you, then they can opt for the online chat support too.

They made it big in a really competitive industry by being there for their customers and closely paying attention to their behavior.

And this is exactly what all the customer-centric firms do. To grow. To expand the customer base. To retain current customers.

Not only this, there are many other benefits of having a support or knowledge portal. Let’s look at a few of them and the ways these portals can help you in growing your business and customer base.

Increase Productivity of Your Support Team

With Help and Support Portal, native screen pops give your agents instant access to contextual Portal data, including the caller’s user record and tickets. This empowers agents to provide personalized interactions and eliminates the need to ask time-consuming or repetitive questions.

Turn Any Device into a Support Portal

The web real-time communication facility turns your employees’ web browser into a phone. Thus, Portal enables agents to respond to customer requests from any location. It also eliminates time taking procedures like hardware, maintenance and set-up time, while allowing an enterprise to focus on organization’s resources to deliver exceptional customer service.

Turn Interactions into Insights

Every interaction matters… To read in depth about the works of a support portal, download our support whitepaper.

About Us:

CRMJetty is a hub of innovative customer relationship solutions. Our tools ensure that you can render enhanced interactions at each stage of your customer lifecycle. So, if you are searching for a portal development company to help you set up a WordPress customer portal or any client portal, we are here to help you in building the right customized portals. We have served in this industry for a decade and have built many custom portals like knowledge sharing portal, self-service portal, web development portals, customer portals, etc. Get in touch with us to create customized portals.

Integrate the Power of WordPress and CRM

There are so many platforms available for website creation. But, many developers prefer working with WordPress.

You might also be using WordPress.

In fact, according to a study done by Kinsta, more than 29% of websites’ development is in WordPress. This number is huge. It means that more than one-fourth of the websites on the internet use WordPress.

It truly showcases the power of open source software. Today WordPress is a large community. Not only on the developing side but, millions of people use WordPress to manage their website’s content.

Because of its robust features, WordPress has turned out to be a favorite tool for many people.

This was all about CMS. Now, let’s look at the CRMs. Companies use CRMs to maintain the records of their customers to provide them with better user experience and customer service.

CMS handles your website and CRMs handle your customers’ data. But, the real magic happens when they both are in synchronization.

For this, portals play a vital role. They bridge the gap between CRMs and CMS. Portals are helping companies a lot to manage their customers, optimize their customer journey and serve them better.

There are various types of portals available like CRM customer portal, knowledge portal, self-service portal, etc. each with a unique use case and companies either purchase or develop them according to their needs and business model.

These various types of portals are available on a variety of platforms. So, you can decide which portal you want to use on the basis of the CRM and CMS you have. You can even decide which type of portals you want to serve your customers with.

Let’s say you are using SugarCRM for your storing your clients’ data and WordPress as your CMS then, you need to make sure that your portal integrates with both of them.

Many small and medium sized businesses use SugarCRM. It is known for its open source nature and robust functionalities. It helps you to streamline your business by helping you manage all your customers and their data.

Just imagine the power of SugarCRM WordPress Integration with portals as a cherry on the cake can be.

SugarCRM WordPress Synchronizing:

SugarCRM WordPress integration is the best combination for small and medium sized companies. This integration is a good opportunity for your employees to reach out to your clients easily.

Let’s explore the benefits of using this:

Lead Data Management:

When your visitors fill up the form on your website which is in WordPress, you will be able to see their details in the backend in your SugarCRM. This makes it an easy way to collect, store and manage your leads’ data in your CRM.

Not only this but with the help of these leads also you can start cold calling and try to convert them into your clients. Your CRM will have your clients’ data and this will help you analyze and understand your users. Additionally, it will even help you to streamline various processes to help you grow bigger.

Precise Data:

When your CRM and CMS are in proper sync, the data within will be precise and it’ll be easier for you to maintain data hygiene. The data travels from CMS to CRM and then SugarCRM with its functionalities gives you the freedom to utilize that data the way you want. Both of these platforms being secure also gives an assurance that there’ll be no data loss in the process.

User Activity Tracking:

You can know which web pages your clients are visiting and track their activity on your website. This data, in turn, will help you to understand your users’ behavior better. You can send them custom messages on the basis of their interaction with your website, decrease bounce rate, and enhance your customer service.

Create Custom Form Designs:

SugarCRM provides you a feature called a WYSIWYG builder. This lets you create a custom field for your form. You can have complete control of what you wish to develop, you can even showcase your creativity, maintain your brand value and use color combination with respect to your brand.

User Specific Access:

You can provide specific access to each user according to their use and WordPress assures you that only authenticated users can make changes in your WordPress site.

Optimized Lead Journey:

This integration will let you engage and analyze visitors on your WordPress website and helps you to convert them into efficient clients for your business. It provides you insights into what people are looking for on your website, you can know about your target audience, customer habits and understand their behavior.

Final Words:

This integration will help you get the best of both worlds. You can easily create responsive websites using WordPress and SugarCRM and the portals, an interface for your customers, will work as a cherry on the cake for you. It will help you understand your users effectively; gain insights and help you increase your business.

Stir Clear from the Boeing Disaster Road with Proper Supplier Management

Boeing has been in the news for a few very wrong reasons lately. And by lately, I mean for the better part of the last decade.

The problems that their 787 and 737 Max faced were technological. But when you dig deeper, you can see that it is one thing to blame the technological failures but a whole another one to highlight the human and managerial errors that brought it down.

The issues began with cost cutting. Boeing outsourced 70% of 787 manufacturing with a tiered outsourcing structure. With this outsourcing, the issues created were manufacturing delays due to miscommunication and sometimes lack of communication all together.

During the manufacturing of the 787, the bottom most tier did not communicate the issues they were facing to the company that was assembling the plane. This caused delays in the production cycle so much that the first planes came out 3 years later than promised.

The management failed to communicate how to go about the innovations when they did not provide an on field expert to the companies that were making the parts of the plane.

Next issue was the 737 Max. There is also a very sad case of cost cutting. Boeing had to keep everything the same about it as the previous versions of 737, while also innovating for fuel efficiency and to keep up with the competing new entry from Airbus. The management decided to install software in the plane that they did not tell the pilots about. This, essentially, a lack of communication brought about the two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 Max.

In both cases, Boeing looked at its competitor’s success story, and only focused on the sales they made. They ignored their supply chain, and they ignored the people who are actually going to be operationally interacting with their products.

Businesses that are B2B and even those who are both, B2B and B2C, like Boeing, need to streamline their focus on catering to more than just their absolute end user and looking at their sales performance.

It should begin at the supplier level. The end user is important, yes. But the people who make and distribute your products are more important on a prerequisite level. There are plenty of products that have parts being manufactured by smaller companies and they then come on the assembly line to a different company. This means that the communication between these two companies and you needs to be transparent.

It boils down to paying attention to and maintaining your supply chain. How do you go about this?

No cost cutting:

The only way to do this is not to stop outsourcing, but to outsource responsibly. Pick the right vendors and manufacturers. Outsource to a place that has the same work ethic as your company or country, and ideally one where you speak the same language. Don’t focus on innovating for the sake of cost cutting. This makes it easier to compromise on quality.

Put effort towards your supply chain:

If you are the designer and engineer of your product, you need to place a trainer or supervisor with the manufacturing units. This way, problems can be solved in run time without delays and more importantly, mistakes.

Vendor management portal:

Use a vendor management portal to choose your manufacturers. You can have modules in the portals for quotes, timelines, quality rating etc. This portal should be used by the manufacturers as well as by the people who are assembling your product. From on boarding, quality check, contract management to constant communication, the vendor management portal can handle it all.

With the effective use of this portal, every stakeholder can get run time updates during the process. This can help avoid costly delays and manufacturing defects. No decision will have to be backtracked because of miscommunication. Additionally, if you need to change the specific also, you can do so directly from the portal. The manufactures have a place to register issues they are facing or if they need to revise the contract details etc.

A good supplier management portal can solve anything from the smallest to the extremely important issues. However, your relationship with your suppliers cannot fully depend on the portal. The portal is an aid to human interaction, to reduce redundancy and miscommunication.

The idea is always to build a sustainable business. Not just a profitable one. And once your business is big, do not go down the Boeing road. Don’t look at just the fact the competition is getting better, but examine how they are doing it. Innovation should not come at the hand of corruption.

About CRMJetty…

We are a portal solution company, and we partner with businesses to make portals for their vendors and suppliers. Our supplier management portal has all the features you’d need and it can aid you in your relationship management.

To know more about us and supplier management portal, feel free to drop us a line at sales@crmjetty.com.