Customer Portal

What is a customer portal?

A customer portal is an online space a business opens to its clients after the sale. Each client enters through a private link or code and sees only what concerns them: the delivery stages of their project, deliverables awaiting their approval, invoices, contracts and quotes, upcoming meetings, the support requests they have opened, and a channel to message the team. The idea is self-service. Instead of every update travelling through an email or a call with the account manager, the client finds the answer on their own at any hour, and everything stays documented in one place. Portals earn their keep in project and service businesses such as agencies, consultancies, contractors, designers and training providers, where the relationship runs for weeks or months after signing and approvals and files go back and forth constantly.

Example: launching a restaurant group's website

Illustrative example: a digital agency wins a website build for a restaurant group with four branches. In the portal the client sees four stages: discovery, design, build and launch. The agency posts the homepage design as a deliverable awaiting approval; the client asks for the reservation button to be moved higher, then approves the second version. The deposit invoice sits in the same place, and when a branch manager spots a wrong opening time after launch, the client raises a support request from the portal rather than forwarding a screenshot to three people.

In Naffes CRM

In Naffes CRM a won deal becomes a project in a branded customer portal. From the deal's Customer portal tab, the team makes the project visible, adds deliverables, sets the current delivery stage and then sends the link by email or WhatsApp, or copies it.

• Stages and approvals: the client follows delivery stages and approves deliverables or asks for changes.
• Files and documents: the client uploads files and sees invoices, documents and meetings.
• Support and chat: the client opens support requests and messages the team; the chat arrives in the Inbox as the customer-portal channel.
• Commercial decisions: the client accepts or declines quotes and rates the project.
• No password needed: clients can sign in with a one-time code sent by email or WhatsApp.

Under Settings > General > Customer portal you set delivery stages, visible sections and the welcome line, and the portal can run on your company's own domain.

Getting clients to actually use it

1. Send the link at a moment that matters, such as with the first deliverable that needs approval, not in a generic welcome email.
2. Keep the current stage up to date. A portal stuck on an old stage teaches clients to ignore it.
3. Make it the only place for approvals, and politely redirect approvals that arrive in side conversations.
4. Show only the sections the client needs and hide the rest.

The portal works alongside other post-sale tools: a help desk ticket for requests that need a deadline, a sales quote for any extension the client approves from the portal, and the customer health score to see who needs more attention.

Questions