Why Should One Use A Salesforce Customer Portal

Do you know that US companies lose more than $62 billion annually due to poor customer service?

So, tell me, what do you think good customer service includes? Usually, it's features like multiple payment options, shipping ease, or product details, isn't it? But here's where you make a mistake. You forget about the support your customers need.

To complete a purchase or troubleshoot a problem, they need a portal that would guide them without human help.

A Salesforce self-service portal can be the right solution. It would provide them instant access to relevant information, and eventually save time. It would also boost customer to business relationships. On top of all this, Salesforce even says that 60% of businesses will implement self-service portals in the coming 12-18 months.

Besides, 66% of customers think that time and customer experience are the two driving factors of businesses. Looking at the impact of customer service on business, don't you think it's high time to develop a Salesforce customer portal?

Numbers never lie, as the saying goes. But if you are still unsure whether you should go for the Salesforce self-service portal, keep reading. Below you'll find some valid propositions that would convince you to have self-service portals.

• Reduces Service Cost

Back in 2013, 83% of customers needed support to complete the purchase. However, now 40% of customers prefer a self-service portal to human help. It means more customers are getting equipped to find solutions on their own. And Salesforce self-service portal makes sure of it through FAQs and guides.

With FAQs and how-to guides, customers can easily find answers to essential queries, like "What are the different payment modes available?" and other troubleshooting processes that would require a trained help staff.

They can easily pass through the purchase process without a hitch. And this would help you decrease customer support investment. It would also help you avoid the growing customer service headcount when the company grows.

• Improves Productivity

Salesforce customer portal takes over the customer support tasks, which leaves agents with a few tickets and support queries. To make the work effortless, Salesforce self-service portal provides a ticket system. With it, customers who have a question and need help from the staff can raise tickets. The team can counter those queries on a call or email with no hassle. As more time is available, staff can better support each customer and focus on the other back-end tasks. All these improvements and ease would result in a better customer experience.

Don't forget to check out: Effective Ways To Use Salesforce For Customer Retention

• Enhance Customers’ Skills

It's often said that learning new stuff keeps the mind young and healthy. Salesforce self-service portal makes sure that it does. As customers walk on the solution and purchase path alone, they get accustomed to different technologies and tools on the way, which indirectly helps them learn more about the technology.

To make sure that the learning path is correct, Salesforce self-service portal equips customers with knowledge base features like how-to guides and step by step tutorials. It helps them explore the products and services. The portal also provides hints, tips, and other practices to help customers learn more about business and technology.

• Leverage Personalized Information

A personalized service enhances customer experience. Using customers' past details, the Salesforce customer portal helps them find relevant information in a short span of time. It offers user interface features like quick navigation, advanced search, reports, etc. The multiple user-profiles and record types further help in providing a customized experience. Salesforce self-service portal provides customers with layout configuration options like entering names, saving templates, and changing color schemes. This authority of changing the style gives customers a feeling of being valued.

From a business viewpoint, this personalized approach helps you understand customer needs, gain perspective from a buyer's angle, new trends, products and services in demand, popular search items, and so on. In general, the personalization you provide your customers will help you make informed decisions.

• Improves Transparency

A positive customer service, hierarchy in management, and dashboards for business growth are the most underrated features. Yet, all these three help in improving business transparency. And thus, businesses should have a knowledge base, role hierarchies, and customized dashboards and reports.

With the Salesforce self-service portal, you can be sure of increased transparency, confidence boost, and repeat orders. It offers all three features. The knowledge base would ensure that customers have a clear idea of what they are purchasing and how.

With a three-level role hierarchy, you can control the data access of the users. It ensures that the data remains safe and secure. The feature works along with sharing settings so that only authorized users can share the data and documents.

And most importantly, to know how the business is truly doing, Salesforce self-service portal provides a custom dashboard and reporting. With it, you can improve your service offerings and look for opportunities. KPIs can offer us ads spent, specifics of placement, target audience, leads, sales, and more. In general, transparency would help strengthen brand reputation.

Check out another amazing blog by CRM Jetty here: Get the Best Out of Salesforce Customer Portal

The Final Call

Integrate a Salesforce self-service portal in your business workflow. The customer experience and needs are changing. They need an advanced, easy to use tech solution for all their problems. And for business, having a Salesforce customer portal would mean increased traffic, reduced customer service cost, brand reputation, faster, easier transactions, and enhanced productivity.

Not exaggerating, the demand for self-service portals is likely to grow in the coming years. 88% of companies even believe that by 2021 self-service would be the fastest-growing customer service channel. And the service won't be limited to AI, IoT, and front-end ease.