Solutions for financial services: customer portal

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A customer portal is a great tool to provide your customers with a higher service level. A customer portal allows you to organise your sales and service processes a lot more efficiently. Appronto knows how to build high-quality customer portals. On this page, we will explain what a customer portal is and how you can effectively utilise it within your organisation.

What is a customer portal?

A customer portal is a digital environment that enables interaction between your customers and the organisation. We’re not talking about a public webshop that can be accessed by anyone, but about a closed web environment that is only accessible to customers that possess the correct login credentials. Where the main goal of a website or webshop is marketing and branding, a customer portal is intended for service and sales. Traditionally, a customer portal was mainly used as a self-service tool, but nowadays, it is much more than just that.

B2B customer portals

More and more B2B organisations are also discovering the potential benefits of customer portals. In a secure digital environment, customers are able to view their contracts, outstanding invoices and the status of orders or services. The customer portal is also an environment where you can place new orders or start service requests. Customer portals make it easier to manage big request loads. This provides many benefits for both the customer and the organisation!

Keys to success

Customer portals can take various shapes. A generic standard solution is seldom the right fit. Only a portal that is able to process your specific requests and business needs can really offer added value to customers. Do your processes and services require a customised approach? Then building your own customer portal with low-code could be an excellent idea. Although every customer portal is different, there are a couple of general keys to success. We will discuss four important ones.

1. User experience is king

A successful customer portal prioritises the needs and wishes of the customer. Major players have set high standards for digital solutions, so customers expect to get the same experience from you!

2. Make it personal

In this day and age, a successful customer portal is more than just an online sales and/or service counter. Personalisation is an absolute must. A customer portal should show your contact details and clarify who you are and what you stand for.

3. Provide an intuitive design

A successful customer portal is based on best practices in the UX field, user testing and user interviews. With an intuitive design, you ensure that customers can use your portal without having to read a bulky manual first.

4. Create an integrated system

Your web environment might already contain different data streams that allow you to combine payment data, customer data and orders. A successful customer portal effortlessly connects these data streams and brings them together in one integrated system. Would you like to know more about our integration options? Click here for additional details.

Collin Crowdfund

Collin Crowdfund was founded to support Dutch SME entrepreneurs with their financing plans and to provide investors with a well-vetted investment opportunity. The Collin Crowdfund platform was built from scratch by Appronto and provides fully automated end-to-end support to entrepreneurs for all their financing needs. It also acts as a one-stop-shop portal for private individuals.

An incredible 99.5% of the loans that appear on the Collin Crowdfund platform are fully funded. In total, this has already amounted to a spectacular total of more than €250,000,000 since the platform’s inception.

Watch this video featuring CEO Jeroen ter Huurne: “At the time, I said that we built an entire bank within six months. It is important to use the most suitable technology to pull off a big project like this. Luckily, Mendix delivered on its promise and provided the solutions we were looking for.”

Do you want to get started with a customer portal, just like Collin Crowdfund?

Appronto is happy to think along with you without obligation!

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