Customer Portal v/s Partner Portal: Choosing the Right One

Portals are a bridge between you and your customers.

But, what makes it essential for businesses? It’s the value that it provides to the customers, vendors, partners, and other stakeholders, who accounts for half of business revenue.

88% of customers expect businesses to have self-service portals because it allows them to solve their queries and issues themselves without contacting agents or support teams. It gives customers the documents and information required to solve the problem. However, its functionalities depend on the user, industry, and type of responsibilities.

For example, a partner portal solution for an NGO may consist of different features like performance monitoring, loyalty programs, partner onboarding, campaign management, etc. In contrast, a customer portal solution for recruitment may consist of documents and applications, job offers, etc.

This difference may raise various questions like — which portal you should invest in? Should you go with a customer portal or partner portal?

But, first, let us see the reasons for using a portal.

Why Do You Need a Portal Solution

Previously, when customers had a query, needed a document or information on the open ticket status, they had to contact the customer support team. Now customers can access the information through an online customer portal solution on their own. They can control their information. If required, chat with a support team (via portal) in case of emergency or when they can’t find the solution from the knowledge base. This way of solving problems smartly is convenient for both — you and your customers (or partners, stakeholders).

• Collaboration

Portals help you provide your customers and partners with personalized information that may be useful to them. For example, a real-estate company can allow their partners, agents to view their clients and approach others. Customers, on the contrary, can view the listings, shortlist, and even buy or rent a place instantly from the portal.

• Accessibility

Portals provide easy access to relevant information such as FAQs, user manuals, how-to guides, troubleshooting tips, product information, company details, etc. With a well-managed knowledge base, all the information will be up-to-date.

• Customized Content

Imagine a real-estate app showing you the flat availability in your desired area and mentioned budget when you open the real-estate app. That is the personalized content you get to view on your portal.

• Better Communication

Portals not only make the login process easier. They also save authentication time by allowing customers to log in with their social media accounts, phone numbers, etc. As the login already authenticates the customer, it eliminates the additional need of the support team to validate customer details, which can sour customer relationships.

It also provides a community feature where all the members can discuss the products, new ideas and even help resolve queries.

• Improved Customer Service

One of the biggest benefits of a customer portal solution is it allows customers to resolve their own queries. Not only customers but everyone including partners, and other stakeholders. It’s a boost for those who don’t want to spend more time contacting the support team to resolve queries. It’s also beneficial for businesses as it helps them save on labor costs.

• Increased Productivity

Partner portal solutions allow accessing documents such as contracts, estimates, and more. It makes it easy for internal teams to share and view the documents. Document sharing cuts down on the number of emails and the need of 3rd party sharing apps.

• Fewer Errors

Every data is auto-sync with the CRM, eliminating the chances of miscommunication. Using portals means automating most of the tasks, which reduces human errors.

• Cost-Effective

There are different setup costs that you need to consider while developing a portal. However, there are many portal development companies that can provide you with cost-effective solutions. Besides, cloud technology and SaaS solutions are getting cheaper with the growing demand and new players coming into the market.

In addition to these, increased responsiveness, brand building, analytics, security are other benefits of using portals.

In short, having it is a profitable choice. But the question is — what should you choose? Let us find out.

PRM Vs CRM

(Partner Relationship Management or Customer Relationship Management)

Partner Portal Solution

It is a part of companies’ sales efforts and focuses more on the sales team and the partners that make efforts to generate leads and nurture them.

Partner portal helps companies empower the sales and increase ROI. Users of partner portals have limited access to the data and can only see the data of the modules they have access to. With PRM, companies can create multiple portals and manage, track their indirect sales.

• Your partners can collaborate for every sales activity, task, lead generation, capturing or nurturing, etc.
• They can use tools to track, manage, and analyze their marketing campaigns.
• You can share reports and documents from anywhere, while your partners can view them anytime.

Partner portal solution consists of features like database management, lead management, role-based access, data sharing, purchase and invoicing, etc.

Customer Portal Solution

A customer portal is an interface that provides support to the customers and helps them solve issues related to products/services. As a company, you can build a customized customer portal solution with features, modules to streamline communication.

• You can provide your customers omnichannel support. They can generate a ticket from a mobile phone and view the status on another device too.
• You can integrate your customer portal with your website and allow easy access to the knowledge base.
• With online forums, various groups, informative articles, you can provide 24*7 customer support without spending extra.

Customer portal consists of features like product catalog and service display, 24*7 availability, customer type, payment gateway, insights, community, security, etc.

What Should you Choose — Customer Portal Solution or Partner Portal Solution?

The answer depends on your purpose, audience, access, and cost.

If your purpose is to enhance customer service, help them solve their queries independently, a customer portal would be better. But if you’re looking for a portal to help you with sales and lead nurturing, a partner portal is the go-to option. As partner portals have access to core CRM features, they are expensive. So if budget is your constraint, you may have to re-consider choosing a partner solution.

If security is the issue, both — partner portals and customer portals are good to go. They provide role-based access, which limits users from accessing unauthorized data.

There is a thin line difference between the two. The answer to choosing the right portal depends on your requirement — whether you want to manage customers or partners. Both have unique features and functionalities based on their purpose, so choose wisely.

You can talk to a custom portal development company for better guidance.

How CRMJetty can Help Develop CRM or PRM

CRMJetty is a hub of innovative solutions that streamline business operations. We provide a wide range of portal solutions for different industries such as real estate, retail, travel, healthcare, etc., and audiences such as customers, partners, vendors, etc.

If you’re looking for the right portal solution, we can help you with solutions for Salesforce, Dynamics, and more. You can get your tailored solution too. We have built many portals such as a customer portal, non-profit portal, self-service portal, and more. Here’s an overview of our work — CRMJetty Case Studies.