The Digital Economy Demands Customer Self-Service Portals

Are you hiring more sales associates to meet volume demand, sorting through scattered records of frequently asked questions and service requests, and pulling at strings trying to facilitate customer engagement?

Well stop. Today's customers expect service at their fingertips. In fact, 90% of customers in the US expect a customer self-service portal according to Microsoft's 2016 Global State of Customer Service Report. Read the full report here.

Deploying a customer self-service portal can reduce stress on your sales associates and customer service representatives, and make the buying experience such a breeze that your customers keep coming back.

How else can you keep customers coming back? Getting to know them! Learn about the impact of Dynamics CRM.

Self-Service

Customer Self-Service Portals for CRM and ERP allow you to intelligently structure and surface just about any data you wish for your customers, including product and service information, videos describing how to use your products, and answers to frequently asked questions. Putting this information in the hands of your customers lets them access support on their own terms and, in return, can reduce the number of cases your service teams have to manage.

Additionally, customer portals allow customers to place and cancel orders under recurring terms and conditions without the help of your sales associates, freeing them up for more strategic work.

Customers can purchase products during any time of the day or night, providing flexibility for the customer and empowering global sales.

Customize Your Customer Experiences

Information that you decide to publish such as orders, pricing, delivery schedules, and delivery processes in your ERP solution can populate the customer portal. On the flip side, information you obtain about a customer through the portal will be entered into your CRM solution. This automatic importing of data into all of your systems prohibits valuable information from getting lost in the shuffle!

Say goodbye to manual data entry for new and existing customers!

Tailor Sales and Marketing Processes

With an integrated customer portal, you’ll be able to better segment and target your customers for sales and marketing. Integration with CRM can suggest cross-sell or up-sell items based on customer buying behavior. Customers eligible for reward programs can be automatically notified when they qualify for a reward based on the information obtained through the portal.

Increase Customer Engagement

As customers come to appreciate this streamlined customer experience, they will naturally engage with your brand. The portal provides you with excellent ways to facilitate this engagement, giving customers an exclusive “in” with your company and a customized profile to operate from. Customer engagement and the creation of a strong brand community can make a significant impact on your sales revenue in today's connected, digital economy.