Service portals as a building block of digitization
Pforzheim, december 2020 –
For B2B companies, good customer service is not only an important differentiating factor from the competition, but also a key lever for long-term customer loyalty. Those who want to offer customers an exceptional service experience in the digital age must rely on digital solutions, among other things. One building block for this is a service portal.
But what added value does the use of a service portal offer and what should be considered when setting up a customer service portal? Which technologies and processes are important to ensure that a service portal ultimately creates new revenue potential? The itmX GmbH webinar on december 15 will provide answers to these questions, among others.
Your own B2B service portal as an additional interface to your customers
Digitization, with its rapid development and above all technological achievements, is putting previous B2B processes and even entire industries to the test. But in customer service in particular, companies can now create unique customer experiences thanks to digital means that remain in the memory and thus not only stand out from the competition, but also generate more new business at the same time. The digitization of customer service therefore offers considerable potential for companies that is often still untapped today.
One component of service digitization is a customer service portal. Customers today also expect a similarly intuitive shopping experience in the B2B sector as they are used to in the B2C sector. While the online portals of the usual platform providers that people like to use privately focus on obtaining information, selecting products and making purchases, in B2B business it is above all what happens after the purchase that is decisive for the success or failure of the further business relationship.
Primary goal of service portals: actively involving customers in processes
Customer centricity therefore also, or even primarily, applies to the after-sales area. A customer service portal can be used intelligently:
- To tap new revenue potential through cross-selling and upselling offers
- To offer customers a platform on which they can inform themselves and also order directly – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- To reduce the cost of customer contact through the self-service tools it offers
- To revolutionize the entire collaboration with customers and thus increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The primary goal of service portals is to actively involve customers in the processes: They can place and retrieve orders online, schedule the next maintenance appointments for their machines in use, confirm delivery dates, order spare parts for the equipment in use directly from the respective exploded view, or simply view the status of a service ticket and access the invoice history.
However, the potential of service portals can only be fully exploited if all processes are interlinked and surrounding systems also communicate with each other. Depending on its design, the service portal feeds on data from the ERP, the CRM, the Product Information System (PIM), the CAD, or even the Marketing Automation System.
Competitive advantage through individualized service portals
itmX Service Expert Elfriede Koch will discuss how a company can create a competitive advantage through a service portal, while also creating greater customer satisfaction, efficiency and profitability, in a webinar on December 15.
These topics will be covered, among others:
- Why a B2B customer portal is an important step in the digitization of service processes
- How a customer service portal can increase customer satisfaction
- Which technologies and processes are important for a B2B customer portal
- How to integrate all departments into the processes of the portal so that the whole company benefits from it
The virtual event is aimed at decision-makers and interested parties from the areas of service, e-commerce, IT and digital business models in the B2B environment.