Platform
Customer portal
The CONTACT.WORK customer portal opens in a browser. Your customers, partner companies, and business units submit requests, track their status, see their history with your company, and get notifications there. Customers handle simple questions on their own without calling the contact center. The portal shares one database with the agent workspace, so your team sees every action a customer takes. It carries your branding and lives on your website.
Requests2 openin progressOrder№ 7310shippedDocumentsOctober statementreadySupportchat and callonlineSections
What's in the portal
Examples
Where companies use the portal
Several companies or business units share the platform, and each one sees only its own customers and requests in the portal.
A head office helps its agencies sell
The head office takes buyer calls and requests and passes them to agencies by city, specialty, or rating. Each agency works in its own portal: it sees the customers assigned to it, calls them back, and records the outcome. The agency director adds employees and views the agency's reports, while the head office sees a summary and ranking across all agencies.
- Requests assigned to agencies
- An outcome for every request
- Agency ranking
Callcustomer from AlbanyansweredSummarymeeting settaggedRating2nd of 14 agenciesOctoberUnansweredrequest #18492 hrsSeparate branches in different regions
Each branch of the company serves its own region. Inquiries from customers in a region go to that branch's portal, and its staff see only their own customers. The head office compares branches in a shared summary.
- Requests by region
- Customers in their own region
- Branch comparison
SouthHouston, Dallas184 requestsMidwestChicago131 requestsNorthwestDenver97 requestsHead officecomparisonreportDivisions with different products
Divisions of one company sell different products to different customers. On the shared platform, each unit has its own web request forms, its own fields, and its own customers. Unit data doesn't mix, and company leadership sees the full picture.
- Their own web forms
- A separate customer database
- Shared reporting
Insuranceown request form312 customersLoansown request form540 customersDataunits kept separatenot mixedManagementshared reportreadyPortal sections and request fields are configured separately for each participant.
How it's built
How the portal works
Data
Where the portal gets its data
Orders, contracts, and statuses come from your CRM or ERP, and conversations and messages come from the CONTACT.WORK platform. Customers see the current state of things, not a week-old export.
- CRM and ERP
- Conversations from the platform
- Up-to-date data
CRMorders and dealsAPI1Ccontracts and documentsAPIPlatformcalls and messagesright awayUpdatedtoday 10:45 AMcurrentAccess
Who sees what
Every user has their own login. A customer sees only their own requests, a partner's employee sees their company's requests, and the partner's manager sees everything for that company. User actions are recorded in an audit log.
- Personal login
- Roles and permissions
- Audit log
Customerown requestsown loginPartnercompany requestsby roleManagerwhole companyby roleLoglogin 10:02 AMloggedLook
What the portal looks like
Colors, logo, and fonts come from your brand guidelines. The portal opens on a subdomain of your site or is embedded in one of its pages, and it adapts to phone screens.
- Your branding
- Your web address
- Desktop and mobile
LogoyoursuploadedColorsbrandappliedAddressportal.your-site.comconnectedPhonemobile viewreadyLaunch
How we launch the portal
- 01GoalsWe look at what customers and partners ask agents most often and decide what to move into the portal.
- 02DataWe connect the portal to your CRM or ERP and check that orders update without delays or gaps.
- 03RolesWe list the roles – from customer to branch director – and set which sections and actions each one can use.
- 04LookWe bring over your logo, colors, and copy, choose the portal's web address, and check how it looks on a phone.
- 05PilotWe open the portal to a few customers first, collect feedback, and adjust forms, copy, and notifications.
- 06RolloutWe open the portal to everyone, send invitations, and track in reports how much status calls have dropped.
Comparison
Requests by phone and email vs. in the portal
| Portal | Phone and email | |
|---|---|---|
| Request status | They check it themselves anytime | The customer calls and waits for an answer |
| Documents | Stay attached to the request | Get lost in email threads |
| Agent workload | Calls about complex issues | “How's my order?” questions |
| Partners | Record results in the portal | Report in spreadsheets |
| Customer data | In one database | Scattered across inboxes |
| Evenings and weekends | Submitted right away | The request waits until Monday |
Requirements
What you'll need
- Data
- API access to your CRM or ERP
- Address
- A subdomain of your site or a page to embed the portal in
- Look
- Your brand logo, color palette, and fonts
- Users
- A list of users, if you grant access yourself
- Deployment
- In the cloud or on your own hardware
- Price
- The platform is free; implementation is billed in support-plan hours
Preparation
What to decide up front
Q&A
Frequently asked questions
How is the customer portal different from the customer success platform?
The portal is part of that platform – its customer-facing side. The full platform also includes tools for your team: customer records, workflows, and metrics.
Do customers need to install an app?
No. A browser is enough, on a laptop or a smartphone.
Can the portal use our brand identity?
It can. The portal follows your brand guidelines: logo, brand palette, fonts, and interface copy. It opens on your web address, so customers see it as part of your site.
Where does the portal get order data?
From your systems – CRM or ERP. The platform pulls the data through an API and shows it to the customer.
Who sets up the request forms?
Forms are built in the platform's form builder: fields, required items, and attachments. Different branches and divisions can have different sets of forms.
Does an agent learn about a portal request right away?
Right away. The portal and agents share one database, so a new request or message from the portal appears in the customer's record immediately.
How does a customer contact support from the portal?
They start a chat or tap the call button. The AI consultant answers chats first and hands complex questions to an agent, who sees right away who is reaching out.
Does the portal work for partners and dealers?
It does. A partner adds its own users, sees the inquiries assigned to it, and records an outcome for each, while the partner's director gets a company summary.
Can we give the portal to our branches?
You can. Each branch or business division gets its own portal with only its customers, requests, and web forms, while the head office sees everyone's work together.
How is customer data protected?
Access is separated by role: a customer can't see other customers' requests, and a partner can't see another partner's data. You choose where data is stored: the CONTACT.WORK cloud or your own infrastructure.
How do we estimate what the portal saves?
Look at three things. First, calls and emails about request status: compare the month before launch with the first month of the portal, and multiply the difference by the cost of one inquiry. Second, the account manager hours that went into forwarding documents and collecting reports from partners. Third, requests submitted after hours, which used to wait until morning or get lost.
Can we add our own sections to the portal?
You can. New sections are built as custom development for your company's needs.
How much does the customer portal cost?
The portal itself is free, like the whole platform. You pay for our work – setup, connecting your systems, and branding – in hours from your support plan. Contact us for a quote.
Glossary
Terms on this page
- CRM – customer relationship management
- Where a company keeps its customers, deals, and full communication history. Learn more →
- ERP – enterprise resource planning
- Orders, inventory, and finance in one system. Learn more →
- Customer portal
- A secure area of the website where customers track their requests. Learn more →
- API (application programming interface)
- The way programs exchange data with each other without a person in the loop. Learn more →
- Cloud deployment (cloud)
- The platform runs on the vendor's servers, and agents connect over the internet. Learn more →
- Customer success platform (CSP)
- A system for managing customers after the sale. Learn more →
- Knowledge base
- All answers, policies, and prices in one place – for agents and AI. Learn more →
- Customer record
- The screen of customer data an agent sees during a conversation. Learn more →
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