In today’s competitive environment, it’s becoming more important than ever to invest in small business customer experience. But how do you go about creating an enjoyable experience that keeps customers coming back? 

Through this blog post, you’ll answer the question, “How do CRM systems improve customer experience?” You’ll also learn some tips to get the most out of your CRM and improve your small business customer experience. 

Let’s jump right in!

What is a CRM?

To answer the question, “How do CRM systems improve customer experience?”, first let’s take a look at what a CRM is. 

Put simply, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a tool for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and leads. 

A good CRM:

• Simplifies processes.
• Strengthens connections with customers. 
• Improves profitability. 

What is customer experience?

Customer experience often gets mistaken for customer service. But, whereas customer service is a single event in the customer journey, customer experience (CX) refers to your customer’s holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand.

CX encompasses how you interact with your customers at every stage of their buying journey, including your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. 

Why is customer experience important to small businesses?

Huge corporations have the resources to provide the best possible customer experience, but it’s easy for cash-strapped small businesses to overlook the importance of investing in CX. 

However, failing to have a customer experience strategy has a negative impact on your brand, as well as your bottom line. 

In fact, according to PWC’s Future of CX report:

• A positive customer experience results in a 16% price premium and increased loyalty for a product or service.
• 32% of customers would walk away from a brand they love after one bad experience. 
• 82% of US customers and 74% of non-US customers crave a more human experience in the future. 

To put that in simple terms, your small business earns more sales, customer retention, and strong relationships when investing in customer experience. 

How do CRM systems improve customer experience?

So you’ve seen why small business customer experience is crucial to stay ahead of the curve. But what role does a CRM play? 

It’s time to answer the question, “How do CRM systems improve customer experience?”

Keep in touch with your customers

When it comes to providing a great small business customer experience, ongoing and meaningful communication is vital. Each interaction we have with a customer influences their decision between staying or going elsewhere. 

So how do CRM systems improve customer experience to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty? One answer is by helping you keep in touch!

A CRM tracks and stores customer data such as: 

• User behavior. 
• Purchase history.
• Conversations. 
• Sales interactions. 

It tracks customer behaviors through your website, social media, and marketing campaigns. Then, it guides your customer through the sales funnel by alerting a sales rep of their interest or sending a triggered email. 

With this information, you can keep your customers updated on company news, sales, offers, campaigns, or other initiatives. A CRM also segments your customer base so that you send the right customers the right message. 

Personalize your communications

Even as a small business, you’re faced with an overwhelming list of contacts. It’s difficult to determine who in that list actually wants to see an email about your new product. 

A CRM makes it easy to identify the right contacts by segmenting your contact lists based on criteria. These criteria can be location, gender, age, buyer stage, and more. 

As a result, you send emails that reflect customers’ preferences, interests, and values by segmenting recipients into groups using your CRM. So, even though your responses are automated, they are not impersonal. Instead, your email interactions are tailored to each customer. 

The useful information that your CRM captures over time helps you give customers a unique experience. The software automatically pulls data from your contact information in order to customize each customer interaction. For example, you can automatically add their name to emails or predict when they call. 

When customers receive an email with a personal touch, it signals that you’ve specifically tailored your message to them, making it feel less like spam. 

Ensure a consistent customer experience

When it comes to small business customer experience, consistency plays a big role in building a strong customer relationship. 

An effective CRM:

• Tracks all your customer interactions and unifies your communication channels. 
• Stores all your customer information in one place.
• Streamlines customer communication.

If a customer chats with a representative today, they shouldn’t have to repeat all the information they sent in an email yesterday. Customers need quick and appropriate responses with consistent messaging whenever they reach out. 

And CRM systems allow you to accomplish this by automating responses, support requests, and more. As a result, you ensure consistent communication while learning where to improve processes. 

Centralize your customer information

A CRM provides a centralized database with all your customer information. Storing all your information in one place makes it easy for anyone in your company to access it when needed. 

For example, if a customer has previously interacted with your company, your sales representatives can see what products that customer is interested in. 

A CRM tracks all your customer interactions, which guide your marketing efforts and sales pitches. Without having to dig through files and records, you save time and elevate your small business customer experience. 

Provide fast support

Today, customers expect you to provide everything in an instant — and that includes answers. Luckily, a CRM sends out internal notifications so your team can deal with a customer the second they send a service request. 

With time-based alerts, you’ll never worry about customer requests falling through the cracks. Take it a step further by connecting your CRM with Google Chat, Slack, Telegram, or the other communication channels your team uses.

If you notice multiple customers reaching out over the same problem, you can even save your solutions and responses in your CRM as email templates to accelerate customer support. 

Additionally, a CRM increases your capacity to get customer feedback through automated surveys, scheduled follow-ups, and emails that measure customer satisfaction. 

Better yet, offering self-service portals empowers customers to get the information they need through your knowledge base, FAQs, and more. 

Small business customer experience tips

As a small business, it’s intimidating to start prioritizing customer experience. Where do you start? Here are some tips to help you achieve the best small business customer experience!

1. Learn from customer feedback

Now that you’ve answered the question, “How do CRM systems improve customer experience?”, you know that they increase your capacity to gather feedback. But in order to really improve your small business customer experience, you need to learn from this feedback. 

For example, if trends show that many of your customers face issues with customer support, then investing more in training or resources for your staff will enhance your small business customer experience. 

As a small business owner, always make sure that you guide your efforts by your customers’ opinions. Whether it’s through customer surveys, open invitations, or online platforms, your customers will be pleased to know that they’re being listened to.

2. Map your ideal customer journey

The next tip to create an exceptional small business customer experience is to map your ideal customer journey. It’s hard to see where your opportunities and pain points lie when you don’t fully understand your customer journey. 

Journey mapping involves creating customer personas. It means identifying your customers’ goals and listing all the touchpoints they interact with.

By breaking down the activities in each phase of your customer journey, you’ll fully understand your customers’ needs to create the best small business customer experience.

3. Look for pain points in the journey

Pain points are moments in the customer journey that cause your customers frustration and give them a negative perception of your company. They are the root cause of a negative small business customer experience, so identifying them should be a priority. 

Using analytics tools that measure customer experience and satisfaction is a good way to identify pain points. Customer feedback provides valuable insights — and it isn’t just limited to surveys.

You can reach out via email, SMS, or even live chat to dig deep into what your customers think about your small business customer experience. 

Take the time to identify your customers’ biggest frustrations and work out solutions for them. For example, if they’re frustrated by long wait times for support, then offer self-service options through customer portals so they can resolve issues quickly and independently. 

4. Standardize operations to eliminate inconsistencies

As a small business, you have limits in terms of your finances and staff. So, in order to keep your customer experience consistent, accurate, and pleasant, automate what you can. By automating low-level, repetitive tasks, you save time and increase productivity. 

Although each customer experience should be a little different from the last, standardizing it to make experiences similar ensures:

• Increased efficiency.
• Consistent service.
• Fewer errors and oversights.
• Increased accountability. 

As your team delivers using a standardized approach, they provide the most streamlined service. And when you clearly define, document, and review your processes to uncover inconsistencies, your team is less vulnerable to errors. 

5. Put your customers first, always

Using a ‘customer first’ strategy means putting your customer at the center of everything you do and every decision you make. When you prioritize your customers ahead of your products and services, you stay ahead of the competition. 

Customers want to know that someone is listening to them. And they want to reach out in ways that they feel comfortable. That’s why you should offer multiple channels for them to contact you. 

It’s important to ask questions on social media and surveys. But to truly listen and amplify your small business customer experience, you need to respond and make the necessary changes. 

Whether it’s improving the live chat feature on your website or switching to better product packaging, the best way to show customers you hear them is by turning their feedback into actionable changes.

Build strong customer relationships with Method:CRM

So you’ve looked at the tips to build a good small business customer experience. But imagine having a powerful tool that transforms your customer experiences for you? Enter Method:CRM. 

With Method:CRM’s customer portals, your customers are empowered to manage their relationship with your business, on their own schedule. They’re no longer getting frustrated by long wait times when sending you emails. 

Customers have 24/7 access to their accounts, where they can update their information independently. Better yet, they can view and pay their invoices online at the click of a button. Gone are the days of chasing your customers for a payment!

The best part: all of this information syncs to QuickBooks or Xero. So you never have to worry about keying the information twice. It’s that accurate!

You can also imagine how disorganized your QuickBooks or Xero account gets when managing both your lead and customer information there. So why not handle your leads in Method:CRM, and then have them sync to your accounting software once they become paying customers? Method:CRM makes it easy. 

It also makes things simpler for your team. Imagine your sales rep wants to find out what the best way to target a customer is. Instead of digging up past files and records on that customer, all their details, past interactions, and activity is available through a centralized 360-degree customer view in Method:CRM.

All your sales rep has to do now is sit back as they deliver an exceptional experience to your customer. 

Bottom line: CRM is key for small business customer experience

You should not overlook the importance of investing in small business customer experience, as it generates more sales and strengthens customer relationships.

A CRM software such as Method:CRM makes this easy for you with features including:

• Self-service portals to retrieve invoices, make payments, and more.
• A powerful two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero.
• A 360-degree view of your client history.

Elevate your small business customer experience with a free trial of Method:CRM.

Image credit: Viacheslav Yakobchuk via Adobe Stock

In 2024, customer experience is going to play a bigger role in businesses than ever before. To stay ahead of the curve and create a good customer experience, companies need a clear customer-centric strategy. 

This blog dives into some of the ways you can provide the best customer experience. You’ll also learn how to measure and analyze customer experience. 

Lastly, you’ll take a look at the power of coupling a customer portal with CRM software to take your customer experience to the next level. 

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) refers to what your customers feel when dealing with your business or brand. 

It’s their holistic perception of and experience with your touchpoints at every stage of their buying journey, from browsing your website or storefront to customer service. 

Is customer experience the same as customer service?

Whereas customer service refers to a single event in the customer journey, customer experience describes all the experiences your customer has with your brand.

Although customer experience is often mistaken for customer service, there are clear differences between them. 

While customer service managers are mainly responsible for the customer service aspects of your business, your entire business plays a role in shaping customer experience through various touchpoints. 

Why a good customer experience matters

Unsurprisingly, when a customer receives a good customer experience, they’re willing to pay more. But every good experience influences more than just one customer. 

In fact, 71% of customers recommend a product or service to others after receiving a good customer experience. 

Overall, according to data from Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, brands with superior CX grow revenue five times faster than those who lag in CX. 

What’s more is when a customer receives a good customer experience, they’re motivated to come back again. 

In fact, 64% of organizations believe that creating unforgettable customer experiences is the best way to increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which is the total income a business can expect from a customer over their entire relationship. 

 How to create the best customer experience

Now that you’ve understood how crucial a good customer experience is for your business, you’ll want to know how to create the best customer experience! 

Let’s dive into some strategies you can use to achieve this in 2024.

1. Understand who your customers are and what they need

In order to create a good customer experience, you need to empathize with your customers to understand their needs. 

One way to bring your customers to life is to segment them and create personas or customer profiles. Assign them a name and personality, and list the goals and pain points they might have. Are they tech-savvy? Or, do they need clear instructions?

Another tool used to better understand customer needs is an empathy map. It allows you to build a complete picture of your customer and the actions they might take based on their beliefs, emotions, and behavior. 

When you pay close attention to who your customers are and how to create the best customer experience based on that, you turn them into fans and brand advocates. This sets you up for success.

2. Map the ideal customer experience journey

Once you understand who your customers are, mapping your ideal customer experience is the next step. 

By creating personas and identifying customer goals, you can better understand your audience to create an ideal customer experience map. 

A customer experience map breaks down activities in each phase of the customer journey, and lists all customer touchpoints.

Through an experience map, you see the entire experience from your customer’s point of view, so you can highlight all their pain points and opportunities. This way, you can figure out how to create the best customer experience when supplying your products and services. 

Although it can be easy for customer experience maps to become internally-driven process flows, it’s important that you base your customer experience maps on actual customer research.

3. Always prioritize and listen to your customers

When you prioritize your customers ahead of your products and services, you create a culture that differentiates you from the competition. Customers want to know that someone is listening to them. 

It’s important to ask questions on social media and in surveys. But even more so, to create a good customer experience, you need to listen, respond, and make the necessary changes. 

Whether it’s fixing bugs on your website or switching to sustainable packaging materials, the best way to show customers that you hear them is by responding to their feedback.

4. Train your team to provide the best service

It’s easy to overwhelm your employees with complex information and resources. Even worse, your training plan might be irrelevant or impractical. Giving your employees the right training is crucial to providing a good customer experience. 

Start by gathering feedback from customers to figure out pain points or the highest ROI opportunities. Then, use your findings to guide the next step.

For example, if customers deal with slow customer service, invest in software and customer training systems. On the other hand, if customers face trouble in being understood, then investing in soft skills training is the solution to how to create the best customer experience for them.

5. Create an emotional bond with your customers

Since more than 50% of a consumer experience is based on emotion, emotions therefore play a large role in a customer’s decision-making process. 

Storytelling can bring human elements back into a digital customer experience. And people love a good story. Customers love to tell stories too, so asking them about their journeys, needs, and successes all make your client relationships more personal.

Similarly, brands use nostalgia and personal touches in their marketing to further build positive emotional bonds and create a good customer experience. 

When you form a positive emotional bond and a customer remembers how they feel when using your product or service, they become loyal customers. 

6. Learn from customer feedback

Customer feedback, whether positive or negative, can help you create a good customer experience. It’s natural to feel discouraged by negative feedback. But even if you run the most popular company in the world, you’re guaranteed to have customers who are displeased. 

You can use negative feedback as an opportunity to accelerate your growth. By hearing the thoughts and sentiments of your customers, you can figure out how to create the best customer experience. 

Also, you’ll know what to avoid. For example, Nike received backlash recently for releasing shoes that some believed had racist implications. Nike immediately recalled the shoes, demonstrating cultural sensitivity and respect for their audience.

7. Optimize the customer journey as you grow

It’s necessary to optimize your customer journey as your business grows to prove you’re trustworthy and care to provide a good customer experience. 

This involves looking at every interaction a customer has with your brand and determining how to create the best customer experience at every step.

Although this may seem tedious since the number of channels, devices, and touchpoints makes the customer journey longer, it’s worth the effort!

A small mishap or flaw in your customer journey can take away from a good customer experience, and will lead to losses in your customer base. This flaw could be anything in the journey, like the design of your webpage, the checkout process, or even your customer support. 

To make sure your conversion rates increase, it’s important to regularly collect feedback and measure customer experience.

How to measure and analyze customer experience

So you’ve looked at the different ways on how to create the best customer experience… But how do you measure it to figure out if you’re actually getting results and creating a good customer experience?

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is used as a measure of customer satisfaction, as well as loyalty. The score determines how likely it is for customer to recommend your company to a friend or a colleague. 

You calculate it by taking the percentage of respondents who are promoters and subtracting the percentage of respondents that are detractors. 

The formula is as follows: (Number of promoter scores/ total number of respondents) – (Number of detractors/ total number of respondents).

A score of 0 does not mean that you’re doing a bad job! Instead, analyze your results in comparison to competitors and focus on improving the score according to your customer feedback.

You can dive deeper by using reporting tools to analyze your results. For example, you can create custom reports that analyze NPS ratings by customer type. This allows you to understand the different types of customer sentiments and work out how to create the best customer experience for everyone individually. 

Time to resolution (TTR)

Time to resolution (TTR) is the average time it takes your customer service reps to resolve a ticket or issue after your customer opens it. 

You can measure it in days or business hours, and calculate it by adding up all the TTR and dividing that by the number of resolved cases.

According to CX trends, the number one cause of a frustrating customer experience is a long wait or response time. So, it’s crucial to track and find ways to improve your TTR for a good customer experience. 

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is a CX metric you can calculate to measure how satisfied or unsatisfied your customers are with your product or service on average.

The survey scale is typically 1-3, 1-5, or 1-7, and you calculate your satisfaction score by adding up all the scores and dividing by the number of respondents. It’s best to try and get a CSAT score within 15 minutes of an interaction.

It’s important to do something with your insights once you gather the data and find out what your CSAT is. 

Although your CSAT score is a great reporting benchmark, you’ll find the real cause of those scores in the open-ended comments. 

Foster a good customer experience with customer portals

Many companies today realize the importance of customer portals, as they put the power in your customer’s hands. 

A customer portal solution provides a centralized hub for customers to perform tasks independently and manage their relationship with your business.

On-demand information

During the customer journey, there are many instances when a customer needs immediate access to information. 

Traditionally, when a customer needs information, they’re required to reach out to the company and wait for an executive or service rep to respond to them. This can take a lot of time, and it also takes your employees away from their work. 

When integrated with a CRM, a customer portal allows customers to perform tasks such as:

• Checking the status of their support requests.
• Changing their account information.
• Viewing their invoices and quotes.

Method:CRM is a popular software choice because it gives customers 24/7 access to self-service portals where they can view and pay invoices. Not to mention, with Method, you’ll enjoy a powerful two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero. 

Increased security

Customer portals (especially cloud-based ones) allow your customers to upload information securely and access sensitive information such as bank details or their home address in one place. 

Thanks to SSL encryption, firewalls, virus protection, VPN, and other features, information is only accessible to authorized users. This is impossible with email or traditional post. 

In comparison to other customer support channels such as SMS and email, a customer portal also allows customers to upload higher-quality documents with larger file-size limits.  

More efficient support

We live in a world where customers expect things to be done instantly. A customer portal improves customers’ satisfaction as it empowers them to meet their needs on their own schedule. 

Self-service options allow your customers to handle tasks themselves so that your support staff can focus on more critical requests. 

Even better, when coupled with a CRM, a customer portal allows you to create automated workflows, like sending out immediate notifications to support staff when they’re responsible for a customer support request. 

And your customer can track the status of that open support ticket, so they’re not left in the dark!

After a while, you’ll notice that your customers face similar problems that your team can tackle with similar solutions. Save your responses to common problems in your CRM as email templates and automate them, so that no customer requests fall through the cracks. 

Recap: How to effectively create a good customer experience

Creating a good customer experience boosts sales and increases customer loyalty. It’s important to invest in strategies that help you achieve this at every stage in your business’ customer journey. 

When you connect your customer portals with software such as Method:CRM, you take your business to the next level with:

• Self-service portals to retrieve invoices, make payments, and more.
• A powerful two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero. 
• Time-saving automated email templates and workflows.

Watch how Method:CRM transforms your customer experience!

Image credit: Yakobchuk Olena via Adobe Stock

No matter the industry, customer experience is a huge part of your business success.

You should never neglect your customers’ wants and needs. If you do, you risk jeopardizing your relationships and the opportunity to develop new ones in the future. Instead, you should strive to exceed customer expectations.

An effective way to improve customer satisfaction is to incorporate a customer experience portal into your business.

But what exactly is customer experience, and how do portals improve it? Keep reading to find out!

What is customer experience?

Customer experience is how people feel when they buy or interact with your products and services. It includes things like customer service, the quality of the product or service sold, customer support, customer convenience, and more.

Enhancing the customer experience is crucial to your success. And it doesn’t matter how good the current state of your customer experience is — you can always build on it and make it better.

How important is the customer experience?

Customer experience is one of the most important factors in becoming a successful company. Implementing a customer experience strategy demonstrates dependability and improves customer loyalty.

Even if you close a sale, those who have had a negative customer experience can do serious damage to your business. These customers might choose to:

• Cancel future business with you.
• Leave negative reviews online.
• Choose one of your competitors instead.
• Request a refund.
• Damage your reputation by word of mouth.

On the other hand, happy customers help your business grow. They might choose to do repeat business with you or provide positive customer feedback online.

Is customer experience the same as customer service?

Customer experience and customer service are interrelated, but not the same.

You can think of customer experience as an umbrella term that includes customer service. In other words, customer service is just one part of customer experience.

You establish customer service in the way you interact with your customers and the support you provide them.

Consider the quality of your customer experience (and the crucial role that customer service plays within it) to stand out among your competition.

Why do you need a customer portal?

A customer portal is one of the most helpful tools you can implement when striving for better customer satisfaction. Customer portals specialize at enhancing the customer experience.

If you don’t know what a customer portal is yet, don’t worry — you’ll be an expert in no time. Let’s start with a visual of a customer portal. 

Essentially, it’s a dedicated hub where your customers can access information and services from your company. This means that if a customer faces an issue, they can identify and solve it without the need for your support team.

Because they allow your customers to get help by themselves, customer portals ensure an easy and convenient customer experience. At the same time, this gives you and your staff more time and resources to focus on other areas of customer experience.

Benefits of a customer experience portal

There are many benefits to incorporating a customer experience portal into your business. With these portals, you’ll:

• Increase customer convenience.
• Automate your operations.
• Save time and money.
• Provide personalized service at scale.
• Store large customer files securely.

Customer convenience

A customer experience portal is one of the best ways to maximize customer convenience.

No one likes picking up the phone or drafting a support request email, especially for something that they’ve purchased.

With a customer portal, your customers can educate themselves on your product or services and self-serve. Portals are accessible 24/7, which means that your customers can find help even when your business is closed.

This also makes for a more efficient customer experience because it removes employee response time from the equation. Through portals, customers have instant access to the self-service options you enable.

Your customers are sure to appreciate this convenience, and it carries over to you as well. Customers will only feel the need to contact you once they’ve exhausted the options in their personal portal.

Automate your operations

Customer experience portals automate a significant portion of your customer support operations. The workflows you can automate include:

• Reviewing and approving invoices.
• Managing and paying bills.
• Tracking orders.
• Support ticket tracking.

Some customer portals also feature AI chatbots that manage incoming service requests. This saves your support team from sifting through a sea of requests every time they come back to work.

Customer portals come with most CRMs. Some providers like Method:CRM even offer to set up customer portals for you themselves.

Not to mention, because of customer portals’ capacity for automation, your employees can refocus their efforts into other manual workflows that need improvement.

Save time and money

In the long run, customer experience portals save you time and money, which you can reinvest in your business to accelerate your growth.

Without a customer portal, you spend time and money on customer support on an ongoing basis. 

One common approach is to hire more customer service employees. However, while it might mean that your customers receive support faster, your expenses will skyrocket when you factor in these new salaries.

The better option here is to take advantage of customer experience portals. Granting your customers the ability to self-serve saves on employee hires and gives you more time to focus on other areas.

Personalized service

Not all of your clients’ wants and needs will overlap fully, if at all. This is why a personalized customer experience is crucial to your success.

In fact, an Accenture study found that 91% of customers are more likely to buy from companies that:

• Know their name.
• Provide personal recommendations.
• Understand their preferences. 

Customer experience portals are a great way to personalize your customer service. Since each customer portal is tailored to your respective customer, they engage with your business from a perspective that is uniquely theirs.

The result is that your customers feel seen and heard because you’ve provided them a space where they can get exactly what they need from your business instantly.

How to create a customer portal

If you’re wondering how to build a customer portal, you have three options. You can:

• Program it yourself from scratch.
• Configure it using no code tools in a dedicated system like Method:CRM.
• Have a company that specializes in customer portals set it up for you.

While the first option permits unlimited customization, it requires advanced programming skills and a large chunk of time to configure.

The second option is a much quicker and easier process. Since you don’t need coding skills, a personalized customer experience portal setup is possible.

Here is an example of a custom portal built in a no-code platform, Method:CRM. 

The third option gives you a nice balance between customization capability and practicality.. Some service providers that offer customer portals as a feature also do the setup process themselves free of charge.

Add ways for customers to engage with your business

Of course, the most important aspects of your customer experience portal are how it allows your customers to engage with your business.

Whether it’s an educational resource or an area of self-service, every interactive element you give your customers betters your customer experience.

Some examples of how portals increase your customer engagement include:

• Knowledge repositories, like help resources and guides for your products or services.
• Informative blog content focusing on your target industries.
• A community forum where customers can contribute their thoughts.
• Access to bills and other relevant documents.
• Updating payment methods.
• Checking statuses on support requests.

Prioritize security

It’s paramount that you prioritize the security of your portal users. If your customers don’t feel safe storing and accessing their confidential information within their portals, then there’s no point in implementing them in the first place.

Make sure that your customers feel secure by incorporating security measures into their portals. Examples include:

• A secure cloud-based file storage system.
• A password management system with multi-factor authentication services.
• File encryption to protect sensitive data.

When your customers feel that you’re able to keep their confidential information safe, their trust in your company stays strong. This results in more deals and customers down the road.

Update in real-time

Ensure that your customers always stay in the loop with live, real-time updates. A hub that displays outdated data is of no use to your customers, so consider how you can provide updated information on a consistent and timely basis.

Things at your business are bound to change at some point, no matter how small. Billing rules get revised, people switch addresses, and accounting information constantly evolves. 

Nothing is set in stone, so it’s crucial to ensure that your portals are adaptable.

This is not something you want to neglect, as your quality of customer experience regarding these portals hinges on their ability to provide accurate and up-to-date information.

Add your own branding

One thing that’s often overlooked about customer experience portals is branding. Including your company’s brand in your customer portals is beneficial for a few reasons.

A customer experience portal that uses a default layout is much less approachable than one that is clearly connected to your business. Especially with the rise of phishing attacks and cyber crime. 

It’s important that your portals feel unified to your business as a whole. Branding accomplishes this by linking your services so that they feel like they come from the same place.

This is the type of thing that is strictly visual, but goes a long way regarding user experience. Below is an example of Method:CRM’s secure portals branded for the company Best4UServices. 

If your company’s name, voice, and style stay recognizable across all of your designated tools, then it doesn’t matter how differently those tools function. Your customers will feel more comfortable using these tools when they are visually tied together and to your company.

Create your customer experience portal with Method:CRM

Method:CRM is a customer relationship management software solution that sets its users up with a customer experience portal out of the box. It is best for small and mid-sized businesses that use QuickBooks or Xero to power their operations. 

Here is an example of how portals work in this Method’s CRM system.

Method:CRM gives you the benefits customer experience portals create without any of the hassle. You won’t need to worry about knowing how to build a customer portal from scratch, but still get the flexibility to make the portal your own. 

Plus, you can continue to automate workflows and improve organization using Method:CRM’s other tools such as:

• Lead-management.
• E-signature capture.
• Email campaigns.

Method:CRM understands the importance of customer experience, and works hard to optimize it for all its users.

Customer experience portal FAQs

What are the best practices for building a customer portal?

The best practices for building a customer portal are to:

1. Personalize your portal for each customer’s wants and needs. 
2. Focus on the education of your customers with help resources like guides.
3. Create a user interface that is approachable and easy-to-understand.

Why is a self-service portal important?

A self-service portal is important for several reasons, all of which revolve around enhancing the customer experience. Some of the perks of implementing a self-service portal include:

• Quicker turnaround time on support requests.
• Customers can fix problems themselves. 
• Takes stress off your support team.
• Improved customer satisfaction.
• A centralized view of customer information, for both you and your customer.

What are the features of a customer portal?

The features of every portal are unique, but generally, a customer experience portal offers:

• Self-service options.
• Online payment processing. 
• Educational content with categorized information about your products and/or services (i.e. how-tos, guides, and FAQs).
• Secure cloud-based access to relevant data and documentation.

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