Benefits of Customer Self-Service Portal for B2B Businesses

A recent survey shows that 66% of manufacturers plan to invest in customer portals in 2024. And this trend is not unique to the manufacturing and eCommerce industry. With the growing competition, more and more companies have decided to invest in a client portal.

To explain this trend, we will cover the most important B2B customer portal benefits, and how they can affect your business. We will show you why B2B portals are vital tools for growth, what features they have to incorporate and what are the first steps you can take to have your own.

A B2B customer portal is a customized online platform where clients can access your services and information 24/7.

It can greatly improve customer satisfaction, reduce customer support and administrative costs, and help maintain your competitive edge.

Customer portals are used in almost every industry. There are portals for eCommerce, suppliers, financial services, and more.

At Digiteum, we’ve designed and developed B2B customer portals for companies in the healthcare, human resources, non-profit, and manufacturing industries, among many others.

With so many alternative products, customer experience (CX) quickly becomes the number one focus for growth and client acquisition.

The key role of B2B customer portal is to improve client satisfaction and retention. By doing so, you can increase your ROI. Research shows that securing new customers costs 6-7 times more than retaining existing ones. Not to mention more time-consuming.

And the same statistics about profit are even more shocking: a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25-95% growth in profit.

To sum up, you have to do everything you can to keep your existing clients. And having a self-service portal is no longer an option; it’s a customer expectation.

Now, let’s look at the specific benefits of B2B customer portal implementation.

One of the greatest B2B customer self-service portal benefits is that your clients can access your products and services at any time, from anywhere. The B2B space was based on personal relationships and salesmen visiting prospects, shaking hands, and making deals for a long time.

However, with most companies targeting global audiences, this practice is not sustainable anymore. The different time zones would require sales representatives to work around the clock. And hiring a bigger team to increase sales is just not in the budget for most companies.

It seems that clients also prefer to do their own research and manage their own accounts. Data shows that a whopping 89% of B2B customers spend more if the company provides online self-help options. (Source: Gitnux)

Portals can shorten the time needed to finalize a purchase. The B2B decision-making process often includes managers on different tiers. By optimizing and simplifying the sales process, you’re taking some of the weight off of their shoulders. Subsequently, it encourages customers to keep coming back for more.

After completing a purchase, your clients can check the status of their orders. There is no need to keep the customer support lines busy. They can easily follow the journey of their investment online. Offering this feature gives customers peace of mind, affirming their decision.

Many B2B clients find it frustrating to place recurring orders for the same items. Without a B2B digital customer portal, they would need to contact the sales representatives every month (or even more frequently). On a self-service portal, customers can easily schedule orders, saving a lot of time.

B2B business owners know the amount of time and resources required to provide proper customer support.

Empowering your clients to do their own research and purchase by themselves means you need a smaller staff. By lowering the workload, your employees can focus on solving serious issues instead of answering the same questions every day.

The recruiting and training process can also take weeks or even months. Providing at least 12 hours of daily customer service also means paying the agents extra evening/weekend overtime.

The power of B2B customer portal is that you can scale up and down your customer service strategy on demand. In empty periods, you don’t need the whole team to sit on standby in the call center, waiting for requests and support tickets. This means that you can significantly reduce costs by implementing a self-service portal.

Just like buying independently, customers crave access to information.

That’s why forums, FAQs, and tutorials are among the most popular benefits of B2B customer self-service portal. Clients can learn how to set up automatic payments, receive invoices, return faulty items, and much more.

Forums are also a great place to build a community. You can engage and connect with customers, and they can also have conversations among themselves and help each other. Of course, providing answers and spotless customer service is the main reason for having a forum.

Besides the self-help functions, sharing reliable product data is also part of this benefit. For example, in B2B or wholesale ecommerce it is vital for the clients to receive updated information about the attributes and dimensions of the products (such as machine parts).

One of the B2B self-service portal benefits is that customers can manage and customize their own accounts. The services and content are tailored to their needs and goals. Clients also have access to their purchase history and other data, which also helps streamline the transactions.

Self-service portal customers also benefit from having all the communication in one place. This is faster and more efficient than having meetings, calls, or other means of communication.

A B2B self-service portal can help you collect valuable information about customer behavior. You can see which features are the most popular, what questions are the most frequently asked, and even fix system issues.

Let's say many users are searching for solutions for a ‘why my payment didn’t go through’ type of question. Then, you need to ensure that your digital platform doesn’t contain errors or bugs.

Client surveys and feedback forms are also common practices that provide a direct route to your clients’ thoughts. In return, you can tailor your products and services according to their preferences.

Security is especially important when corporate accounts are involved. Among other security measures, users of the same account can be given different access levels.

Web portals store and transfer sensitive information, such as financial data. Data encryption and following local data protection laws and regulations are standard practices. They also need to conduct regular safety audits and updates.

However, building a reliable infrastructure is also crucial when developing a B2B customer portal. That’s why you need an expert partner who pays attention to every security detail during the design, development, and deployment phases.

If you need custom B2B customer portal development and design services, you’re in the right place. Our senior specialists have helped several businesses like yours to surpass their competitors.

Don’t take our word for it!

Let us show you a few examples from our versatile portfolio.

The Digiteum team has provided custom services to a global HR and payroll provider, Mercans. The benefits of implementing B2B customer self-service portal allowed them to get ahead of their competition.

Here are some of the unique portal advantages:

• New, flexible modules with user-friendly drag-and-drop tools
• While-labeling option so their clients can customize and brand their services
• Diverse modules to adapt to users and regulations in different countries

Read more about this success story here.

We rebuilt Rollomatic’s aging customer portal to provide their clients with an improved experience for production monitoring. As a leader in the competitive CNC machine industry, it was crucial to achieve better customer satisfaction.

This development project included:

• The modern, functional customer portal that enables real-time monitoring
• Native mobile applications for iOS and Android to accommodate the clients’ needs
• Localization into French, German, and Italian to grow the client base

To achieve these benefits, we’ve implemented several standard solutions, such as the web portal integration with the cloud-based backend, that enabled real-time data retrieval.

Read the entire case study here.

Digiteum is your custom web portal development company. Cooperate with us, and enjoy the fast kick-off, proactive communication, and business-first approach.

By now, we’ve probably convinced you how beneficial a customer portal can be. At this point, you might want to know which is the better option: building a custom portal or having a ready-made one.

The thing is, using an off-the-shelf portal solution can reduce the cost in the beginning. However, in the long term, you may need to invest more in customizing it to fit your needs.

That’s why custom development might be a better solution if the key features of customer portal are too unique. A tailored portal can also help you to remain competitive and better serve your customers.