Customer Portal Design 4 Best Practices to Implement in 2022

1. Customer Portal Design:4 Best Practices to Implement in2022 Almost every business now knows and uses customer portals to improve their customer service. But that doesn’t guarantee customersatisfaction. Your portal is the face of your customer service. 50 percent of customers will switch to another brand after one bad experience. So, you must offer a positive experience withan appealing, intuitive, and feature-rich customer portal design. sales@crmjetty.com

2. If you had a physical retail store, you would ensure that customers get the best experience possible. The sections are designed systematically, and the support people are well-versedwithalltheproductsinthestore. You would make it possible that they don’t leave without purchasing or with a bad experience. Think about your customer portal the same way. Ensure it serves customers the way it’s supposedto. Let’slookatthe4customerportaldesignbestpracticesthat will surely help you in2022. 1. Build withPurpose Start by thinking about your customers’ requirements and whatservice they need – communication, document sharing, profile management, etc. Think about the features your portal should consider in order to help them with self-service. Along with customers, also think about your support team and how the portal will simplify their work. If you can’t, think about the questions that your customers often ask – if it’s about performance, you need to provide them reports on the dashboard. You can provide a knowledge base and ticket management if it’s about ticket generation. For your support team, think abouttheir sales@crmjetty.com

3. challenges – repetitive queries – add FAQs and case deflection. • Rememberthatyourportaliseffectiveonlywhencustomers and staff use it. If it serves a purpose, both your customers and staff will benefitfrom it. • Tip: If the purpose is instant solution/help, add featureslike advanced search and knowledge base to help customers helpthemselves. • Challengestotackleduringcustomerportaldesign • Too much dataclutter • Complicatedbrowsing • Customerrelationships • Optimizedportal • 2. Focus onUI • First impressions are the most important part of the customer journey. If the store looks appealing, they are likelytostayandbrowse.Hence,startwiththelookandfeel, i.e., the visuals and graphics, and then proceed towards functionaldesignandhowtheportalworks. • The visual elementsinclude: sales@crmjetty.com

4. Layout Provide limited options. According to Hicks law, customers take more time to decide if you give them multiple options. Plus, complicated terms confuse them. Hence, use simple words and names like Contact Us, About Us, Home Page, and product page. Next, prioritize the look; make the interface intuitive. Add colors that resemble your brand. Maintain consistency throughout, deliver a message that service is your core competency and not just a siloed operation. While sharing important information, use a bold colorpalette. Accessibility It should be easy for customers with or without any disability to find what they are looking for. A search tab should redirect customers to the required sections – knowledge base, assets, community support, cases, or other resources. All the elements and buttons should be placed so that they are visible and easily accessible. For example, a search bar on the top – in the center or left/right corner. Your self-service should be only one click away from your supportcenter. Here are some tips to make your portal accessible for specially-abledcustomers. sales@crmjetty.com

5. Use contrastingcolors • Addtextlabelsandpatternstodelivercontent • Support keyboardnavigation • Navigation • Navigation impacts your store performance. Hence, ensure it’s smooth and professional as it will help you find the relevant information instantly. Categorize the sections properly and make the links clickable and proper. Maintain consistency and focus on the positioning of the elements like CTAs, menu, header, footer, etc. Ensure that all thelinks navigate to proper sections or pages. If a user clicks on the link to an article, it should navigate to that specific article. The navigational titles should be clear and appropriate. Don’t forget to add alt text for all images. If you want to track customer information, use breadcrumbs. They help track and retrieve the previous path that customers followed. • WhiteSpace • White/negative space gives breathing space to the reading elements. It separates the sections and helps customers/users focus on the specific elements – focuson sales@crmjetty.com

6. aspecificsection,missthecontent,andclickonthe call-to-action. An apt example of white space is Dropbox’s help center. Customers have a clear idea of where they can find specific information. The white spacing and content in between guides customers to specific sections and articles. This is self-service in actualterms. However, white space doesn’t mean a simple break in between elements. You need to make sure thatit’s strategic. For example, placing a bulk of content in the below section and forcing customers to scroll is an idea you should avoid. Don’t let customers scroll left or right. If they have to scroll right to read information, most of them will simply avoid it. Andyourgoaltoofferself-service will beofnouse. sales@crmjetty.com

7. Your customer portal design interface should focus on usability. Customers use it on a daily basis, whether it’s online banking or a retail store. So, make sure it’s appealing and convenient. Also, it should be impressive enough to makecustomersuseitoften. Tip: While designing the user interface of the customer portal, you can create a default layout for all customers or a separate template layoutfor specific customers based on their user groups. 3. Improve UserExperience When designing your customer portal, it’s essential thatyou provide your customers with all the necessary information without overwhelming them with too much or unnecessary information. So, determine the features and information that would help your customers. Don’t overwhelm them with irrelevant features. Here are a few of the features you musthave. i.Self-Service Offerasecureloginandletcustomersmanagetheirprofiles and cases themselves. Give them the freedom to raise tickets and track their status accordingly. Let them find answers to their questions with a knowledge base and communitysupport. sales@crmjetty.com

8. Dashboard Letyourcustomersviewandtrackallactivitiesfromasingle window. Provide all the necessary data, including tickets, profiles, documents, news feed, etc., on the dashboard. Allowthemtostayinformedandsortthedatasuchasticket status,purchasehistory,etc.,usingadvancedfilters. Your portal dashboard should consist of relevant data, quick links to frequently searched content or tasks, and help customers resolve queries immediately. It should highlight urgent/overdue tasks. Avoid adding lengthy welcome messagesorcontentthatyoucareabout,likenews. OnboardingProcess Addingnewcustomersandmaking themcompleteataskon the portal is an accomplishment. However, if even one thing goes wrong, it can create chaos, forcing customers to abandonyou.Hence,makesureyourcustomerportaldesign focuses on seamless onboarding. Add features like single sign-on to let customers log in to the portal easily. Add training materials and tutorials to guide them through the portal. However, make sure that the portal is customer-centric and straightforward, i.e., they should be abletouseitwithout/withlesshelp. sales@crmjetty.com

9. KnowledgeBase Only a few companies provide a knowledge base for their staff and customers. However, that’s the first stop where customers stop in their journey to solving queries. So, provide a knowledge base and ensure that the content is relevant and up-to-date. Also, it shouldn’t be technical.Your articlesanddocumentationshouldbeinlaymanlanguageso thateveryportalusercanunderstandthem.Inaddition,you can also add features like version control to manage the documents systematically, helping customers find the required information quickly. Advanced filters and search optionstofindinformation will alsohelp. Lastbutnotleast,optimize SEO. EvenifcustomersGooglea question, they should be redirected to your portal. It will increase your portal and website reach. Keep doing the gap analysis to understand the content that customers are searching, but couldn’tfind. Tip: Offer FAQs so that customers can get answers in a single click. TicketManagement Your customer portal design process should involve a create/update incident feature. This will allow customers to create a new support request, edit/update the requestand sales@crmjetty.com

10. trackitsstatus.Theautomatedworkflowshouldensurethat a ticket is issued to a relevant support person. There shouldn’t be any manual allocations and management of tickets. You can also add a case deflection feature. Insteadof raising a ticket, customerscanfirstsearchifasimilarqueryalready exists inthesystem.Ifyes,itcanpromptthemtoredirectto relevantlinksandfindthesolutionthere.Thisfeaturewould reduce your service team’s workload and allow them to focus on prioritytasks. Note: Some businesses use the ticket management custom integrated by their portal developer, while others integrate an external solution using the API. So, ask your developer aboutitwhendesigningtheportal. vi. VirtualAssistant Though this is an advanced feature, guided search is taking up the stage, allowing customers to search products, categories, queries, etc., based on their past interactions, purchase history, recommendations, browsing methods,and so on. This provides a next-level service where customers gethelpevenbeforeaskingforitandinawaytheyprefer. A virtual assistant can be an AI-enabled chatbot that asks customers questions based on its interactions with asimilar sales@crmjetty.com

11. profile. It provides customers answers to basic queries instantly. vii. OnlineCommunity Just like an intuitive interface, your customer portal design process is incomplete without a communication channel. Since your purpose is to encourage self-service, a communityforumencouragesyourcustomerstomeettheir peers and share ideas and questions with them.This feature will help you cut down your operational costs since customers can help other customers without any help from the supportteam. In fact, this forum will help you understand your customers better. You can analyze the challenges that they face, the kind of service they expect and implement strategies to improve yourofferings. This will increase your brand awareness. So, ask your portal development partner to integrate a community feature. Allow sharing documents, images, and videos there. Make your community forum engaging and interactive like social media platforms. Integrate multiple communication and collaborationtools. Overall, focus on automation. Automating certain tasks and processes like onboarding, ticket management,and sales@crmjetty.com

12. document management will make the business operations efficient and improve customerexperience. 4. Balance Customization, Security, andConvenience Just like the sleek design, customers expect businesses to provide them with customization options to have control over the portal. So, offer customization options that let them customize the portal’s look and feel. It can be related tostylingorenabling/disablingafeature.Offerservicesthat allow them to share documents and other relevant information withyou. Intheotherhalf,focusonsecurity.Ensurethatthefreedom and access you give your customers doesn’t cost you in terms of data loss, manipulation, or fraud. Follow security best practices such as complex passwords, two-factor authentication, session timeout, hiding sensitive information,etc.Also,addcomplianceandpolicies. With security, ensure that it doesn’t inconvenience customers. If configurations and secure login become a hassle, customers won’t likely use the portal. Hence, try to offer convenience with features like single sign-on and shortcuts. sales@crmjetty.com

13. Explain to them the reason behind limited access and the complianceandsecurityconcerns.Addstatementslike‘your data security is ourpriority.’ Here aresome ways to create a balance between convenience andsecurity. i. HelpCenter A great support center is where customers can easily and quickly find the help they need. It’s a centralized place whereallyourcustomerscomeovertoresolvetheirqueries. Hence,brandyourhelpcentersothatit’spackedwithuseful information and consists of intuitive design elements to attractcustomers. Take a look at Asana’s help support page and see how they have picked and added the right elements – navigational links,searchbar,relatedarticles,andvirtualassistant. sales@crmjetty.com

14. You can also look at GiffGaff’saesthetically appealing design. The help center encourages customers to contact the community for help and reach out to the support team for a personalizedquery/service. • RequestTypes • Whendesigningyourcustomerportal,mentionthedifferent requesttypesandadddetailstoit. • Createdifferentrequesttypesandnamethemsothat it’s easilyunderstandable. • Addiconsforseparaterequesttypesforeasy bifurcation. • Addcontextforhelp,likethepurposeoftherequestor additionalinformation. • Provideeasylinkstodocumentsandcontentif required. • Groupsimilartypesofrequestssothatit’seasytofind relevantinformation. • AddShortcuts • Just as Siri shortcuts help remind you about important meetings and upcoming events, portal shortcuts will help your customers accomplish specific tasks quickly.For sales@crmjetty.com

15. example, instead of surfing through the security module to change the password, they can click on the change password link on the dashboard and be redirected to the change password page. So, add shortcuts to navigate to a specific module or perform a particular action. Allow keyboard shortcuts and simplify everyone’s life. Also, considerscrollbuttonsinyourcustomerportaldesign. Makeitconvenientforyourcustomerstoaccesstheportal. LimitAccess Add a security feature where you can control what your customers can access and what they can’t. Create user groups and define certain access rules based on them. For example, exclusive customers can access premium features. Youcanalsoprovideaccessrightstoindividualusers. AllowCustomizations Let your customers customize their portal’s design. Offer a drag and drop builder to customize the layout – configure colors, themes, font, styles, etc. Allow them to filter the content they would like to read based on their preferences. For example,iftheywanttoreadnewsonlyaboutupcoming events, let them configure it so that the news feed will only showtheupcomingeventsandsalesnews. sales@crmjetty.com

16. Youcanalsoallowthemtocustomizethedashboardtoview theinformationtheyneedononepage. Industry Specific DesignExamples Portal is a solution that benefits almost all industries. Here are a few customer portal design inspirations that you can employbasedonyourindustry. Healthcare Your portal design should focus mainly on the patients. It should allow your patients to schedule appointments, contact doctors, view test results, and check their reports anytime. Here’s a MyChartplatform designed by Children’s Hospital Colorado. The platform makes signing in, sleek. Users only have to add a few details and request an access code. sales@crmjetty.com

17. Source:justcoded The best part of this customer portal design is that it provides all the necessary information in one place.Patients can view their notifications, check the to-do lists, and even performcertainactionswithquicklinks. Banking andInsurance Add features that allow customers to manage private accounts and monetary transactions from one place.A great example is the Santanderbank website. The platform consists of various retail features that allow customers to controltheiraccounts,cards,investments,loans,andaccess otherinformation. Source: SantanderBank sales@crmjetty.com

18. Insurance industries can take inspiration fromCopperPoint, the largest worker compensation provider. They have a solution that lets their policyholders and clients collaborate with self-service features. The platform facilitates payment procedures, recoveries, negotiations, quotes, alerts, and more. Education Check out the Capella University iGuide and Passport York for student and faculty portal design. Capella’s iGuide provides learners with relevant tools and resources to accesscoursesandlearnattheirownpace. Students can register for courses, access them online, managetheirinformation,andevenpaybillstherein. Stanford University’s online solution called AXESSis developed on user-centric design. It allows students and faculty to manage all their activities, including enrollments, classes,courses,andpersonalinformationfromoneplace. You need to make sure that your customer portal design covers industry-specific requirements and includesfeatures accordingly. sales@crmjetty.com

19. What’s the NextStep Go and talk to a portal development partner. Share your requirements and make sure that they include everythingin the customer portal design process. Also, take their inputs on design and development, including the features that should beincluded. Most importantly, ask your customers. Take their feedback andimplementthoseinyourcustomerportaldesign.Always remember that your portal should be designed considering itsusers. Needhelpwithyourcustomerportaldesign? Talk to ourExperts! Source: https:/ www.crmjetty.com/blog/customer-portal-design- 4-best-practices-to-implement-in-2022/ sales@crmjetty.com