Giving Customers a Portal to See Their Data and Send You Information

A client portal is a secure website where each customer signs in and sees only their own information: orders, jobs, documents, invoices or account status. They can also send you things through it, such as requests, files and approvals. It is built as a web application connected to the system where that information already lives, so the portal always shows current data and nobody on your staff has to re-type anything.

Signs this is your problem

• Staff answer the same status questions by phone and email all day.
• Customers email spreadsheets and files that someone then keys in.
• Documents are sent as attachments and get lost.
• A large customer has asked for online access.
• A competitor already offers it.

What customers can do in a portal

• Check the status of an order, job, claim or case at any hour.
• Download invoices, statements, reports and certificates.
• Place orders or requests, which arrive in your system already entered.
• Upload documents and photos against the right record.
• Review and approve quotes, drawings or changes.
• Update their own contact details.
• See the history of everything they have done with you.

What it changes for your staff

Fewer “where is my order?” calls. No more emailing spreadsheets back and forth. Information arrives complete, in a standard shape, and goes straight to the person who handles it. Your people spend their time on the customers who need a conversation.

For many companies the portal also becomes a reason customers stay. Once a buyer is used to seeing everything in one place, a competitor without one is a step backwards.

The same idea works for others outside the company

A portal is simply a controlled view of your system for someone outside it. The same approach serves vendors, suppliers, dealers, agents or members: each group signs in and sees its own screens. In one system we built, a user of any type could log in and see the transactions they were involved in from their own point of view. Read the Southwest Exchange case study.

What makes a portal secure

• Each person has their own sign-in. Nothing is shared.
• Every screen and every file is restricted to the customer it belongs to.
• Connections are encrypted.
• Activity is logged, so you can see who viewed or changed what.
• Your internal system is not exposed. The portal shows only what you choose.

How Keene Systems handles it

1. We list what customers ask for and send most often. That is the first version of the portal.
2. We look at where that information lives. And how the portal will read from and write to it.
3. We design the screens around your customers. Simple enough to need no training.
4. We launch with a few customers, then open it to the rest. Adding features as they ask for them.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Book a call with Lance Keene or use the form on this page.