So there’s nothing more frustrating than doing everything right in the invoicing process but still having to wait forever for payments.

But here’s what many businesses don’t realize. When you send a generic invoice with nothing on it but the total amount due, you miss out on your full revenue potential.

On the other hand, personalizing your invoices is an effective way to stand out from the competition and improve your overall customer experience. 

When you think, “QuickBooks Online customize invoice,” you might assume it’s impossible. But you have several customize invoice QuickBooks Online options to help you get paid faster.

Customizing your invoices lets you: 

• Include important details about your business. 
• Showcase your branding.
• Communicate with your clients in a more personalized way. 

In this blog, we’ll go over how you can customize your invoices to make them more professional, engaging, and effective.

How to customize invoice in QuickBooks Online

Above is a video tutorial on how customize your invoices in QuickBooks Online. Step-by-step text instructions can be found below on how to customize invoice in QuickBooks Online.

Step 1: Create a new template or edit an existing one

To create a new template in QuickBooks Online, follow these steps: 

1. Click the gear icon, then select “Custom Form Styles.”

Image credit: Intuit QuickBooks

2. Click the “New Style” dropdown menu in the upper right corner to create a new template.

3. Select the type of template you want to create.

Image credit: Intuit QuickBooks

How to edit invoice template in QuickBooks Online

4. On the other hand, if you want to know how to edit invoice template in QuickBooks Online, find it in your list of custom forms. 

5. Click “View/Edit” under the “Actions” dropdown menu.

Image credit: Intuit QuickBooks

Step 2: Go to the invoice customization screen

1. Your customize invoice QuickBooks Online options divide into three sections: “Design,” “Content,” and “Emails.”
2. Select the tab you want to edit, and you’ll see your built-in customization options.

Step 3: Customize invoice in QuickBooks Online

1. Implement your changes in each tab (most will be under “Content”).
2. Under the “Design” tab, you can change the colors, font style, and logo. 
3. In the “Content” tab, you can add or remove fields and customize your invoice’s wording.
4. In the “Emails” tab, you can change your invoice online delivery options.
5. Click “Done” to save your changes.

Customize invoice QuickBooks Online: Tips to get you started

Plenty of options are available to help you create a professional and personalized invoice in QuickBooks Online. 

By following the following tips, you’ll create invoices that look great and help you get paid faster.

Apply your logo and branding

Adding your company logo and branding to your invoices helps them stand out and look more professional. To do this, upload your logo to QuickBooks Online and apply it to your invoice template. 

To add your logo and branding to your invoices:

1. Select the gear icon in the toolbar. 
2. Under “Your Company,” select “Custom Form Styles.” 
3. Create a new invoice, or edit an existing one.
4. Under the “Design” tab, select “Add your unique logo.”
5. Select the box with Add a logo +, then the + on the next window. 
6. Locate and select the image you want to use. Select Open. Once uploading is done, click Save, then Done.

Image credit: Intuit QuickBooks

Including your recognizable logo ensures that every invoice you send out has a consistent and branded look, which builds trust with your customers.

Increase personalization with Method

As per our expertise, Method is a fully customizable process automation tool that tackles and improves several business tasks. This includes your invoicing process, from creation to delivery to receiving payment. 

You belong in the driver’s seat. Let Method be your engine. It integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks Online and lets you take invoice personalization to new heights every step of the way.

To name a few examples, with Method, you can:

• Add unique fields and data to your invoices beyond the scope of QuickBooks.
• Take advantage of features like e-signatures that will further accelerate the process.

Get your free Method invoice template here.

Wrap up

When customizing your QuickBooks invoices, consider factors like clarity, branding, and personalization to increase your chances of getting paid faster. 

While your customize invoice QuickBooks Online options are extensive, you need to consider Method to provide a fully personalized experience for your customers.

QuickBooks gets you started, Method helps you grow. 

Customize invoice QuickBooks Online FAQs

What are the three options for customizing invoices in QuickBooks?

The three options for customizing invoices in QuickBooks are Design, Content, and Emails.

How do I customize invoices in QuickBooks Online app?

To customize invoices in the QuickBooks Online app: 

1. Click the gear icon and then “Sales Forms.” 
2. Select “Customize invoice template.” 
3. Here, you can change your invoices’ logo, color, and footer message.

Note: This option is only available on iOS. 

How do I change the invoice layout in QuickBooks Online?

To change the invoice layout in QuickBooks Online, you can edit existing templates or create new ones. 

Start by opening your invoices, found in the “Sales” tab. The next steps are as follows:

1. Select “New Style” to create a new invoice layout or “View/Edit” on an existing invoice to change it.
2. Click “Manage” (the gear icon) to add and remove fields, change colors, and turn on payments.
3. For additional customization options, select “Invoice settings” in the side panel and view each dropdown menu.

See how you can better customize your invoices with Method!

Image credit: stefamerpic via freepik

The post Customize invoice QuickBooks Online: How to personalize your invoices appeared first on Method.

Learning from your CRM and customer experience data is most valuable when it comes to understanding your customers and improving their satisfaction levels. 

With the right approach, you can use your findings to identify trends, uncover insights, and make meaningful changes to your business that create bigger and better opportunities.

Read on to learn more about how you can use your CRM and customer experience data to its fullest potential.

What is customer service software?

Customer service software is a system that allows you to manage customer support tasks and simplify your customer service process. 

Customer service software typically features things like:

• Contact management tools.
• Automated help desk options. 
• Self-service portals. 
• Ticketing systems.

Using customer service software improves your response times and caters your service. What results are happier customers and a better groundwork for more business opportunities down the line.

How does customer service software work?

Customer service CRM software works by providing you with digital tools to streamline and tailor your customer service.

This type of software saves you time by automating routine tasks like:

• Responding to questions.
• Addressing complaints.
• Resolving recurrent issues.

You can set up most CRM systems to automate these tasks across multiple communication channels. Additionally, customer service CRM software typically provides you with analytics to better understand your customers’ needs and expectations.

Why do small businesses need customer service software?

First and foremost, customer service CRM software helps your business by making it easier for you to help your customers.

This is especially important for small businesses that have built a reputation on personalized service. 

Implementing customer service CRM software allows you to automate several customer support workflows. In turn, you have additional time and resources to strengthen your interpersonal areas of customer service.

Why use a CRM for customer service?

A CRM is a good idea for any business to stay organized, try out marketing strategies, and increase profitability. But it’s also great for your customer service because it:

• Gives you and your customers a complete view of your interaction history across all channels.
• Accelerates and automates customer support.
• Allows your customers to self-serve.
• Provides easy access to a knowledge base.

Complete history of your customer interactions

Most likely, you’re handling dozens of customer interactions every week (or more!). So naturally, it’s impossible to remember all the meetings, emails, and phone calls you’ve ever had.

CRM software keeps track of every customer interaction with your business, so you don’t have to. It gives you a convenient view of your interaction history in every stage of your sales funnel.

Automated tracking eliminates issues of human error and helps your business stay organized. It supports both you and your customers, as you can provide them with any information they request concerning their history with you.

Faster customer support

When it comes to customer support, it can sometimes take several months to hear back from a company. Others might never get back to you at all. With a customer service CRM software, your customers get the quick support they need.

Through customer support features like online portals, your customers can solve problems independently, 24/7. This means that your employees don’t need to be on the job for your customers to receive support.

What results is that your customers receive better and faster support not just through these CRM and customer experience tools, but from your employees as well. 

Empower your customers to self-serve

One of the best ways CRM and customer experience work in tandem is when you provide your customers with self-service options. A customer service web portal, for example, allows your customers to access information and solve problems all on their own. 

Some popular self-serve features you can provide your customers include:

• Access to documentation like estimates and bills.
• Adjustable account settings.
• The ability to make and track payments.

Offering self-sufficient support tools saves you time and money. Only when your customers have exhausted their portal options will they need to seek help from your staff.

Knowledge base for your customers

Customer service CRM software makes it easy for your customers to access crucial information about your products and services.

Examples of on-demand information that you can make accessible to your customers include:

• Educational resources, like manuals, help guides, and FAQs.
• Community discussion forums that enable communication with and between your customers.
• Customer feedback surveys and previous results.

By consolidating helpful information for your customers and reducing requests for your customer service reps, you save aggravation on both sides.

In some cases, you can automate these knowledge bases so that they contain more information and solve more problems with each query. 

CRM and customer experience: The benefits

1. Stay in touch to drive repeat business

One of the best things about a CRM is how it connects you to all your customers, regardless of how much of a history you’ve established with them.

Acknowledging an existing customer relationship, no matter how substantial, shows customers that you’re organized and that you value their business. Even the smallest initial interaction can lead to an indispensable business relationship. 

Plus, your sales pipeline is much more manageable when dealing with repeat customers. 

Simply put, tracking your history with customers shows that you care. As a result, it’s much more likely that they’ll return to your business.

Not to mention, with CRM and customer experience software, you’re not just more likely to drive customer loyalty. Chances are, you’ll acquire more leads through word of mouth as well.

2. Quick response to your customers’ queries

Implementing a CRM removes barriers that keep your customers from getting quick and accurate solutions to their problems. 

With CRM and customer experience platforms, gone are the days of long turnaround support times. Through automated customer support CRM tools such as web-based portals, your customers can solve problems instantly and independently.

In most cases, your customers’ problems will overlap and be relatively easy to solve. So, you can make standard solutions for recurrent issues, where your customers don’t need to wait on external factors.

3. Fulfill your customers’ needs

With a CRM system, you’re more capable at handling customer wants and needs. Incorporating CRM and customer experience software means your customer-facing workflows are all individually tailored.

Just because you provide your customers with the same products or services doesn’t mean all their needs are identical. With a focus on customer experience, you ensure that every individual in your diverse customer base is satisfied with your business.

4. Create personal relationships

In simplest terms, doing business is about nurturing and developing personal relationships. Whether you’ve built those relationships already or have plans to, CRM systems exist to help you with the process.

The stronger your relationship with a potential customer, the more likely you are to find opportunities to increase your revenue. It’s more than just customer retention. Customers that feel connected to your company return with more business, and sometimes even with more customers.

So, taking advantage of CRM and customer experience software boosts your ability to build relationships and expands your scope for discovering new customers. 

What are some best practices for customer support software?

Customer support software varies from system to system, but the most successful ones:

• Let customers decide when and where to meet if necessary.
• Connect customer service and customer success.
• Have capacity for customization.

Meet your customers on their terms

Customer support software is especially great at empowering your customers more than is otherwise possible.

Take face-to-face meetings, for example. Typically, your customers need to contact your sales representatives, who then need to find availability in their schedules (or vice versa). Once they’ve figured that out, your sales reps need to give your customers a place to meet. This is usually on company property, which can be a hassle.

Instead, with CRM and customer experience software, your customers can meet with your support staff on their terms. 

You can give customers available blocks of time to choose from and then meet them somewhere you both agree to. Plus, you can automate this process, so customers don’t need to contact anyone to arrange a meeting.

Not to mention, with the self-service options that most of these programs offer, you’ll cut the need for most in-person meetings anyway. 

Merge customer service and customer success

Customer service and customer success are two sides of the same coin. Both help your customers in different ways. But at their cores, the two exist for the same purpose — to drive customer satisfaction.

Customer service is helping people when they need it, while customer success is about helping people use your products or services to achieve their goals. But good CRM and customer experience software recognize the significant overlap that these business methods have.

These kinds of platforms merge customer service and customer success by giving customers the tools to educate themselves and solve problems regarding your business. 

In a way, this makes each customer their own personal support rep, even before your staff is brought into the mix. What results are more efficiency and happier customers.

Make personalization possible

Finally, with CRM and customer experience software, you can personalize your service to each customer.

When customers engage with your business, they want to feel seen and heard. There’s no better way to do that than considering their wants and needs in your products or services.

With a CRM, you provide personalized experiences to each of your customers without putting in any extra effort.

Factors like account settings, branding, and customizable dashboards all play a part in your ability to provide personalized customer journeys.

With the right customer experience strategies, you can check all these boxes and exceed customer expectations. Personalized service across a diverse demographic gives you a far greater reach and satisfaction rate than when you only target one type of customer.

Bridge the gap between CRM and customer experience with Method CRM

Generally, providing a positive customer experience means more work for you and your employees. But not with Method CRM. Method understands that CRM and customer experience go hand in hand. 

Method CRM is the perfect solution for those who want to provide better customer service, even as business growth makes it increasingly hard to do so. It’s designed to make your life easier, so you don’t need to worry about elaborate, expensive plans, or a steep learning curve.

Method gives you loads of service tools and lets you automate several customer-facing workflows.

Some of the ways that Method simplifies these workflows are through:

• Customizable, self-serve, cloud-based customer portals.
• Drag-and-drop workflow automation.
• A centralized view of contact details and history on a single platform.
• A mobile app.

See Method CRM’s pricing plans here.

Recap: How CRM and customer experience overlap

All in all, CRM and customer experience overlap in more ways than they differ.

With Method CRM, you can automate several business practices that revolve around customer experience management, such as:

• Keeping in touch with customers.
• Responding in a timely manner.
• Fulfilling customer needs.
• Harnessing personal relationships.

Method CRM recognizes that CRM and customer experience are inseparable. And its suite of CRM tools supports your mission to give customers an experience they won’t forget.

CRM and customer experience FAQs

What is a CRM system in customer service?

A CRM (customer relationship management) system in customer service is a customizable software that centralizes and automates your customer service workflows.

At its core, a CRM is designed for contact management, but it offers much more. It’s the perfect tool to stay organized and give your customers the attention they deserve, even as your business grows.

How can CRM improve customer experience?

CRM improves customer experience in several ways, including:

• Faster turnaround time for support.
• Self-serve options.
• Detailed, organized information for every customer.

Which CRM is best for customer experience?

Method CRM is the best CRM for customer experience. It offers several features that improve customer experience, such as:

• Customer support workflow automation.
• Self-serve web-based portals.
• Personalized service.

See for yourself what Method CRM is all about!

Image credit: Vanessa Garcia via Pexels

The post How to make the most of your CRM and customer experience appeared first on Method.

Consistently building on and improving your customer experience goes a long way for your business. Just like with your marketing efforts, providing a better customer experience means more sales opportunities down the road.

So, not only will you make your customers happier, but when you provide extraordinary customer service, you accelerate your sales process and increase profitability.

This is why implementing a QuickBooks Online portal will benefit your business. It’s your foundation for providing a positive customer experience.

How do online portals improve customer experience?

Online portals improve customer experience in multiple ways. Namely, they ensure customer interaction with your business is as efficient as possible. A QuickBooks Online portal lets your customers:

• Access information, documentation, and reusable templates.
• Self-serve through support options.
• Update account details and preferences.
• Read through help resources, training content, and community forums.
• Pay bills and retrieve invoices.

In most cases, your customers don’t need to contact your company. They get everything they need in a centralized location. Plus, they can access portals any time, anywhere with an Internet connection.

All this added convenience makes a QuickBooks Online portal the perfect tool for improving customer engagement and satisfaction.

Is there a customer-facing QuickBooks Online portal?

While QuickBooks Desktop has a customer-facing portal, there’s no native QuickBooks Online portal.

QuickBooks Online users interested in customer portals must integrate a third-party add-on with their accounts. Some companies offer specialized software, but an integrated solution is always your best bet.

With Method CRM, you can configure a custom portal that instantly syncs with your QuickBooks Online account with whatever features and customer service elements that suit your business best.

Not to mention, you also get a large selection of CRM (customer relationship management) tools to exceed your sales goals and improve efficiency.

How to create a secure web portal for your customers

Those who want to create a secure web portal have three options:

1. Program it from scratch.
2. Hire a professional.
3. Build it in a no-code platform like Method CRM.

The first choice requires advanced programming knowledge and tons of time, but the customization possibilities are limitless.

The second option is easier but gets expensive. Hiring developers means that you don’t need coding skills of your own. However, it also means that you don’t get complete control over your portals’ design process. And connecting your accounting software is a whole job itself.

The third option combines the best of both worlds regarding customization and simplicity. The Method team helps you create a secure web portal for your customers with ease.

And Method CRM’s two-way sync with QuickBooks means that your QuickBooks Online portal will function seamlessly right out the gate.

Here’s an example of a custom portal built in Method CRM.

Connecting your QuickBooks customer data

Once you’ve developed your customer service portal, the next challenge is connecting your QuickBooks customer data. It requires you to code a system that translates data from QuickBooks to your portal databases and vice versa.

On the other hand, Method CRM’s patented automatic, two-way sync with QuickBooks means that your portals will already be connected to your QuickBooks customer data. And whatever change you make in either system will update on the other end.

Check out this video to see how Method portals integrate your QuickBooks information and serve your customers.

What to include in a self-service customer portal

A QuickBooks Online portal has a long list of optional elements, but you’ll want to make sure to include:

• Access to account settings and information.
• Transaction history.
• Invoice payment options.

Account information

One of the key elements that online portals provide to your customers is immediate access to their accounts with your business. In their Quickbooks online portal, customers can change their preferences and update information at the click of a button.

If they want to change their billing address, for example, they only need to log into their portal and update their settings. This removes the need to contact your support team, saving time and aggravation on both sides.

Transaction history

Your transaction history is the roadmap to the health of your business. So, naturally, recording and tracking all transactions with your customers is crucial. No matter how small the transaction, tracking sales activity in your portals keeps you and your customers organized.

Not to mention, when money is involved, your customers should stay fully informed on their history with your business. This way, there’s never any confusion about previous bills and payments.

So for both your and your customers’ sake, customer service portals should include a detailed transaction history for every account.

Invoice payments

Getting paid for your products and services is the most important step in keeping your business afloat. So, making the payment process easier for your customers is a no-brainer.

Luckily, you can build a QuickBooks Online invoicing portal where your customers can access and pay their bills with ease. You can also notify your customers when they have outstanding payments due.

So, incorporating a QuickBooks Online payment portal means you get paid faster and more consistently.

Why the #1 QuickBooks CRM is your best bet

Method CRM, the #1 QuickBooks CRM software is your best bet for a few reasons, primarily because of our patented two-way sync.

This means that any change you make to either system will automatically update in the other. This way, you can be certain that your information is always up to date.

Taking advantage of Method CRM means you get advanced QuickBooks portal options and a range of CRM tools.

Recap: Benefits of a QuickBooks Online customer portal

Implementing a QuickBooks Online portal is great for your business for several reasons, but the most notable benefits are:

• Self-service options for your customers that save you time and money.
• Personalized customer-facing workflow automation.
• Improved customer convenience and satisfaction.
• Integration with your QuickBooks account.
• Robust file sharing and storage.

QuickBooks Online portal FAQs

Does QuickBooks Online have a customer portal?

QuickBooks Online does not have a native customer portal. Instead, those who want a portal that connects with their QuickBooks Online account must choose from a third-party application that offers such a feature, like Method CRM.

What is the difference between a customer portal and a partner portal?

The difference between a customer portal and a partner portal is, first and foremost, who uses it.

A customer service portal is designed exclusively for customers of an organization, providing them with access to self-service options and information.

A partner portal is designed to connect businesses that have growing relationships. It offers features that make interactions between partners more efficient.

What is the best way to track customer payment issues?

The best way to track customer payment issues is with Method CRM. Method keeps you up to speed with who owes what and when payments are due, so things never get lost in the shuffle.

Method also makes it quick and easy for your sales team to reach out to customers when they have overdue payments. And you can set up automatic payment reminders to prevent issues in the first place.

Interested in a QuickBooks Online portal? Start your free trial of Method CRM today.

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The post Improve customer experience with a QuickBooks Online portal appeared first on Method.

In this article, you’ll learn all the benefits of a Xero customer portal. You’ll also get a step-by-step walk-through on how to create a Xero customer portal. Finally, you’ll see why Method CRM is the best way to make the most out of your Xero software. 

Let’s get started!

Does Xero offer a customer portal?

Xero offers a convenient customer portal that makes it easy to access all your customer information in a centralized area. 

Imagine your customers being able to view invoices, expenses, bills, and bank transactions all in one place. Customers can also connect with Xero support via their customer portal if they have any inquiries.

Let’s take a more detailed look at the benefits of using a Xero portal!

Benefits of a Xero customer invoice portal

With a Xero customer invoice portal, your customers take control of their financial data and transactions while your accounting software stays secure.

Here are some of the advantages:

Get paid faster

Waiting for customers to make payments is a frustrating situation. More importantly, it’s bad for your business. 

With a Xero customer portal solution, you accelerate your cash flow. When customers view their online invoice, they’re able to pay immediately using the ‘Pay now’ button. 

Better yet, you can give customers the choice to pay using debit card, credit card, bank direct debit, and more. With multiple payment options, customers have fewer excuses to delay payments. And you won’t have to waste time chasing them.

Image credit: Xero

The best part is that your customers’ payments are safe since Xero provides multiple layers of security. So they no longer have to worry about fraudulent activity.

Let customers self-serve

Today, customers expect to be able to get things done quickly. The Xero customer portal is designed to make self-service easy. Your customers no longer have to endure frustrating customer experiences with long wait times for assistance. 

Through the portal, customers can take control of their accounts by:

• Updating their contact information.
• Managing their account settings.
• Uploading documents. 

When your customers can handle simple changes on their own, it saves time for both them and your support team. And when you reduce the number of emails and calls for support, your business can focus on handling more critical tasks. 

Not to mention, the Xero customer invoice portal is invaluable for any business looking to manage invoices and track payments. It allows your customers to:

• Access financial documents securely anytime.
• Review, approve, and pay invoices online.
• Download and print invoices. 

Provide 24/7 support

A Xero customer portal allows you to provide 24/7 support, meaning your business is always accessible to customers. If they’re troubleshooting, Xero’s easy-to-use support resources give them the answers they need without requiring the assistance of an employee. 

And if your customers need further help, they can simply connect with Xero support via the Xero customer portal. From there, they can connect to customer service through email and live chat support.

Personalize the customer experience

When your customers log into their customer portal, they have a familiar and user-friendly place to monitor their accounts. This is because the Xero customer portal personalizes the experience for every user. 

As well as accessing their financial data, customers are able to get personalized advice and support that’s specific to their requirements. Now, they can make much more informed decisions about their money. 

How to create a Xero customer portal

Creating a Xero customer portal is an easy way to empower your customers to manage their own accounts. Here’s how you can do it: 

1. Log into Xero and go to the ‘Invoices’ tab.

2. Select ‘Create Customer Portal’ from the options on the left-hand side of the page.

3. Choose the customer from the dropdown list and click ‘Activate’.

4. Enter a name for your customer portal and an optional description.

5. Select the language you’d like your customer to use when accessing their portal.

6. Click ‘Create’.

7. Now share the link with your customer so they can access their Xero customer portal.

It’s as easy as that — your customers can now use the Xero customer portal to manage their own accounts!

Connecting your Xero customer data

The Xero customer invoice portal allows you to connect to your customer data in order to get the insights you need. With a few clicks, you can easily access customers’ information, create invoices, and track payments in real time. 

Thanks to the added security of two-factor authentication, your customers are assured that their data is safe and secure. 

Why Method CRM is the best option for Xero users

If you’re looking to make the most out of your Xero software, then Method CRM is the all-in-one solution for you. It’s a powerful CRM that allows your customers to self-serve through a custom online portal. 

When you spend a few minutes of every day collecting credit card information or reprinting invoices for each of your clients, it adds up fast. Not to mention, it’s tedious and repetitive. Method CRM provides a secure and easy-to-navigate place for your customers to access your business 24/7.

When you give your  customers the flexibility to access invoices and pay beyond business hours through the portal, you face significantly less late payments as a result. And with Method CRM’s online payment gateways, customers have even fewer reasons for delaying payments.

Method extends payment options by integrating third-party payment services, such as:

• Authorize.Net.
• Shuttle.
• Moneris. 

So now your customers have more control over how and where they pay, but Method CRM takes it a step further. With a 24/7 customer support portal, customers can connect with you beyond business hours to get help whenever they need it too.

To reduce obstacles even more, payments show up instantly in Xero, so there’s no waiting time for processing! This is what keeps Method CRM ahead of the curve: its two-way sync with Xero. 

This means that those updates to your invoices and any other information in Method CRM instantly reflect in Xero and vice versa. There’s no need to keep re-keying information or worry about inaccurate double-data entry. 

Now, you can spend more time growing your business. Or even take a much-needed break! Whether you’re at your desk or not, your customers can still make payments, bringing cash into your business faster and more reliably. 

With Method CRM, you simplify workflows and save time while keeping your customers happy.

Recap: How a Xero portal keeps your customers happy

A Xero customer invoice portal simplifies your payment process and ensures that your customers stay satisfied, so they keep coming back. 

Take your Xero capabilities to the next level with a CRM solution like Method CRM that gives your customers the power to:

• Self-serve to view, pay, and download invoices. 
• Choose from multiple payment options.
• Enjoy a powerful two-way sync with Xero for automatic processing.

Extend Xero’s potential for your customers with a free trial of Method CRM.

Image credit: Prostock-studio via Adobe

The post How to keep customers happy with a Xero customer portal appeared first on Method.

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

The post How CRM improves small business customer experience appeared first on Method.

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

The post How to create the best customer experience in 2024 appeared first on Method.

Indeed, customer portal solutions streamline customer-facing workflows and automate your support services.

But what exactly is a customer web portal, and how does it work? And why does your business in particular need them?

Keep reading to better understand customer portals, and learn five reasons why you need them in your business.

What are customer portal solutions?

Customer portal solutions are dedicated web-based customer service and support hubs. They provide customers with a secure and personalized customer experience.

Customer portals allow your company to manage customer interactions more quickly, efficiently, and reliably through features like:

• Self-service tools.
• Secure online access to data and documents.
• Knowledge repositories for your products or services (i.e. how-tos, guides, and FAQs).
• Customer feedback surveys.
• Payment processing and tracking.
• Discussion forums.

Why you need a customer portal

There are several reasons why customer portal solutions are a great fit for any business. That being said, here are our top five reasons why you need a customer portal.

1. On-demand information and support

Customer portals enable their users to securely access relevant data, documentation, and support anywhere and at any time.

This way, your customers don’t need to jump through hoops like contacting your support team or Googling your services. Instead, they can independently access what they’re looking for with ease in a centralized location.

Client portals are also accessible 24/7, which means that your employees don’t need to be on the job at all times in order for your customers to get what they need.

2. Reduces internal workload

Implementing a customer web portal isn’t only beneficial to your customers. It also improves internal work processes, and takes some of the stress off you and your employees.

Customer portals reduce internal workload by automating customer-facing workflows. Since your customers can access what they need independently, your support team will not be as busy with individual issues.

This is especially helpful for small businesses that are experiencing growth, but are having difficulty handling it.

Customer portals also automate:

• Employee ticketing.
• Client communications.
• Order tracking.

Some even feature AI chatbots that manage incoming service requests, which saves your employees’ time.

3. Simplifies your payment process

A customer web portal is a secure and centralized hub that streamlines the payment process for each user.

Portals ensure that your customers can easily access their estimates and bills. They also make tracking and managing transactions a breeze.

What’s more, companies can choose to set up payment gateways in customer portals. If they do, customers are then able to pay bills directly through their portals.

Customer portal solutions remove the hurdles from your payment process. As a result, you have a better chance of receiving what you’re owed.

4. Builds customer engagement

Naturally, the most significant part of a customer web portal is how it opens the floor for better customer engagement. What results is happier customers and more business opportunities down the road.

Customer portal solutions build customer engagement through:

• A direct, ongoing line of communication to your support team.
• Informational resources like how-tos, guides, and FAQs.
• Online community forums for customers to share thoughts and help each other.
• Relevant blog content.

5. Enhances overall client experience

Customer experience is a crucial factor in the health of your business and your potential for future growth.

Even after all is said and done with a deal, customers who have had a negative experience can seriously harm your business. For example, they could:

• End their business relationship with you.
• Damage your reputation in online reviews or by word of mouth.
• Switch to one of your competitors.
• Request a refund.

Customer portal solutions work to avoid these outcomes. They give customers what they want, when they want it.

This makes for a seamless client experience and ensures your customers keep a positive outlook on your business.

What should a customer portal include?

Customer portals differ depending on the companies they serve. However, there are a few client portal features that every customer web portal should include.

Ways for customers to get support

Perhaps the most crucial aspect of a customer web portal is that it allows for customers to get immediate and self-sufficient help on any issue.

Through resources like blogs, community forums, and guides, a customer web portal should give users the materials to solve their own problems.

Personalized client portal software solutions are also accessible 24/7, meaning that your business doesn’t need to be open for your customers to get support.

Customer information

Another key component of customer portals is that they allow your customers to securely access their relevant data and documentation with your company. This includes things like:

• Account details and history.
• Bills and estimates.
• Statuses on current orders.

A customer web portal gives you and your customer a centralized view of their information, so that everything is easily accessible and all in one place.

Transaction history

As your business relationship grows, both you and your customers will be interested in tracking transaction history.

Customer web portal users are able to log in and view their transaction history, so that there’s no confusion about past bills and payments.

Branded customization

One thing you might not have considered about customer portal solutions is the inclusion of your company’s branding.

Your customer portals should feel like they’re a part of your business. Branding accomplishes this by visually linking your services so that they feel unified and safe to use.

It’s only a visual change, but branded customization gives your services a sense of coherence that customers are sure to appreciate.

10 best customer portal solutions

1. Method CRM

Method CRM is the top choice for those seeking a robust customer web portal. Method offers to set up its users with customer portals out of the box. This means that you don’t need any coding background to configure them exactly how you like.

Not to mention, Method CRM users get a suite of tools and integrations that improve efficiency and automate daily business tasks. Method CRM also helps your business’ accounting through its powerful two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero.

Key features

• Customizable customer portals with features like transaction tracking.
• Drag-and-drop workflow automation.
• Estimates, invoices, and payments instantly sync with QuickBooks or Xero.
• Automated lead collection via web-to-lead forms.
• Centralized view of contact details and contact history.
• Mobile app.

Pros

• Improves customer experience.
• Powerful, two-way QuickBooks and Xero integrations.
• Unlimited customization.
• Reusable report, transaction, and email templates.
• Easy to convert estimates into invoices.
• Several third-party integrations.

Cons

• Only available in English.
• Limited to QuickBooks and Xero users.

Pricing

Method CRM offers three pricing plans:

• Contact Management: $25 per user per month.
• CRM Pro: $44 per user per month.
• CRM Enterprise: $74 per user per month.

Method CRM offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.

2. SuiteDash

Image credit: AppSumo

Next up on the list of customer portal solutions is SuiteDash. It’s an all-in-one business management software that’s known for its easy-to-use client portals.

Key features

• User-friendly customer portals that are easy to configure.
• Learning module system.
• CRM tools such as contact tracking.

Pros

• Vast customization options.
• Affordable pricing.
• Good customer service.

Cons

• Occasional server interruptions.
• Reports of a steep learning curve.
• Lacks some basic CRM functionality.
• Outmoded layout.

Pricing

SuiteDash has three pricing plans:

• Smart: $19 per month.
• Thrive: $49 per month.
• Pinnacle: $99 per month.

SuiteDash also offers a 14-day free trial, discounted rates on annual subscriptions, and a lifetime price for each plan. 

3. Zendesk

Image credit: Zendesk

Zendesk Suite is a software package offering a range of CRM tools, including customer portals. It’s designed to improve sales management and sales performance.

Key features

• Customizable customer portals.
• Help center page builder to create self-service knowledge bases.
• Reports and analytics on a pre-built dashboard.
• A call and text log.
• Email marketing features like sync, alerts, templates, and automatic email tracking.

Pros

• Portals have automated knowledge bases.
• Good ticketing system.
• Extensive time tracking options.
• Useful reporting options.

Cons

• Has a steep learning curve.
• Expensive for small to midsize businesses.
• Recurrent performance issues.
• Reports of poor customer support.
• Lacks training resources.
• Customization is time-consuming.

Pricing

Zendesk Suite has three pricing plans:

• Team: $49 per user per month.
• Suite Growth: $79 per user per month.
• Suite Professional: $99 per user per month.

It also offers a free 14-day trial.

4. Onehub

Image credit: Onehub

The next top customer web portal software is Onehub. It specializes in file storage and sharing, but also offers impressive customer portals.

Key features

• Customizable client portals.
• Secure virtual data rooms.
• Branded workspaces.

Pros

• Easy to use.
• Expansive file sharing and storage.
• Strong customer support.
• Affordable pricing.

Cons

• Reports of performance issues.
• Lacks some functionality.
• Occasional service delays.
• Providing access to customers is difficult.

Pricing

Onehub has four pricing plans:

• Standard: $15 per user per month.
• Advanced: $25 per user per month.
• Data Room Edition: $375 per month.
• Unlimited Edition: $575 per month.

Onehub also offers up to a 20% discount on annual subscriptions, and a 14-day free trial.

5. Huddle

Image credit: Semrush

Huddle is another software solution that is popular for those looking to incorporate customer portals.

Key features

• Bespoke, secure client portal solutions.
• Customizable workspaces.
• Robust file management tools.
• Mobile app.

Pros

• Attractive dashboard.
• Handles large documents well.
• Intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

Cons

• Lacks features like timelines, document collaboration tools, and time tracking.
• Limited third-party integrations.
• Reports of poor customer service.

Pricing

Huddle has three plans, beginning at $10 per month:

• Huddle Starter.
• Huddle.
• Huddle Plus.

Huddle has a bespoke pricing model, so you’ll have to contact Ideagen for your specific price. It also offers a 30-day free trial.

6. HappyFox

Image credit: GetApp

Up next on the top 10 customer portal solutions list is HappyFox. It’s a cloud-based CRM help desk system that also lets users create self-service portals.

Key features

• Self-service customer portals with client forums, a support center, and an FAQ knowledge base.
• Powerful ticketing system.
• Mobile app.

Pros

• Practical, user-friendly interface.
• Easily customizable.
• Great out-of-box functionality.
• Good third-party integrations.
• Supports over 35 languages.

Cons

• Mobile app needs improvement.
• Overwhelming amount of sections and menus.
• Lacks notifications and alerts.
• Reports of poor customer service.

Pricing

HappyFox has plans for agent-based pricing and for unlimited agents.

It has four agent-based pricing plans:

• Mighty: $39 per user per month.
• Fantastic: $59 per user per month.
• Enterprise: $79 per user per month.
• Enterprise Plus: $99 per user per month.

These plans have increasingly discounted rates for annual, 2-year, and 3-year subscriptions. HappyFox also offers a 14-day free trial.

It also has four pricing plans with unlimited users:

• Starter: $1,499 per month.
• Growth: $1,999 per month.
• Scale: $2,999 per month.
• Scale Plus: $4,999 per month.

The unlimited user plans are only available on an annual basis, and offer discounted rates for 2-year and 3-year subscriptions. They also offer a 14-day free trial.

7. SupportBee

Image credit: SupportBee

SupportBee is also a good client portal software option. It’s particularly useful for customer support email management, but offers a strong customer portal as well.

Key features

• Client portals to track and send tickets.
• Robust customer support email management.
• Helpful knowledge base creation.

Pros

• Automated ticketing removes the need for case IDs.
• Affordable and unique pricing model (based on amount of tickets instead of users).
• Extensive help resources online.
• Ability to differentiate between product lines.

Cons

• No designated space for client feedback.
• Slow loading times in-browser.
• Easy to lose track of tickets.
• Limited customization options.
• No options for forms available.

Pricing

SupportBee has two pricing plans:

• Startup: $15 per user per month.
• Enterprise: $20 per user per month.

SupportBee also offers a 13% discount on annual subscriptions, and a 14-day free trial.

8. Accelo

Image credit: Accelo

The next top customer web portal is Accelo. It’s an end-to-end CRM platform that helps manage your business. Plus, it lets you configure your own customer portals.

Key features

• Customizable customer portals.
• Automated workflows.
• Integration with accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero.
• Gantt charts.
• Mobile app.

Pros

• Fully customizable.
• Flexible billing and reporting.
• Easy to convert quotes into invoices.
• Space for branding.

Cons

• Setting up portals requires education and is a time-consuming process.
• Mobile app is buggy and needs work.
• Outdated training and help resources.
• Steep learning curve.

Pricing

Accelo has two pricing plans:

• Plus: $24 per product per user per month, with a 5-user minimum.
• Premium: $39 per product per user per month, with a 5-user minimum.

Accelo also offers a 14-day free trial.

9. Freshdesk

Image credit: Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a popular cloud-based help desk software that also provides users with customer portals.

Key features

• Customer portals and centralized portal management.
• AI-powered chatbots with minimal code development.
• Messaging templates.
• Collaborative ticketing system.
• Freshchat platform that merges all messages from a customer into one inbox.

Pros

• Good email tracking and organization.
• Clean and simple user interface.
• Good internal collaboration capabilities, like the ability to rearrange tickets between teams.
• Solid third party integrations.

Cons

• Customer portals require some foundational coding knowledge.
• Reports of weak customer service.
• Contact management and searching needs work.
• Limited reporting options.
• Recurrent performance issues.

Pricing

Freshdesk has four pricing plans:

• Free: $0 and up to 10 users.
• Growth: $18 per user per month.
• Pro: $59 per user per month.
• Enterprise: $95 per user per month.

Freshdesk also offers a discounted rate on annual subscriptions, as well as a 21-day free trial.

10. Nifty

Image credit: Software Testing Help

Finally on this list of top customer portal solutions is Nifty. It offers simple customer portals on top of its dynamic project management tools.

Key features

• Customer portal app.
• Collaborative workspaces.
• Ability to automate daily processes.
• Task assignment tools.

Pros

• Intuitive user interface.
• Loads of project management options.
• Quick loading times.
• Great for collaboration.

Cons

• Customer portals are not customizable.
• Accessibility issues.
• Only account administrators can communicate with each other, so it can’t replace employee or client interactions.
• Adding attachments is difficult.
• Limited storage space.

Pricing

Nifty offers five pricing plans:

• Free: $0 per month, with 100 MB storage and two active projects.
• Starter: $5 per user per month. You get 100 GB of storage and 40 active projects.
• Pro: $10 per user per month. You get 250 GB of storage and 100 active projects.
• Business: $16 per user per month, with unlimited storage and active projects.
• Enterprise: Contact the company, with unlimited storage and active projects.

Nifty also offers a 14-day free trial.

Build your customer portal with Method CRM

Method CRM is a customer relationship management software solution that boosts efficiency and automates work processes.

It also allows you to easily incorporate customer portal solutions into your business. This process is so easy that Method CRM does all the work for you.

Method CRM helps you customize the perfect customer web portal, right out of the box. You don’t need to know a thing about computer programming.

Plus, with all the time customer portals save, you can start exploring your new CRM tools and improving your business even more.

Recap: Why you need customer portal solutions

Customer portal solutions are an effective way to improve customer experience and simplify your customer-facing processes. They give your customers quick and easy access to:

• Relevant data and documentation.
• Help resources like guides and blog posts.
• Account settings.
• Tracking options.
• Payment processing.

Customer portals allow your customers to solve their own issues and access what they need without contacting your support team.

This doesn’t just mean enhanced client satisfaction and engagement. Customer portal solutions also reduce the workload on your staff to boost efficiency across your entire business.

Kickstart your customer portal journey with a free trial of Method CRM.

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The post 5 reasons why you need customer portal solutions appeared first on Method.

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.

Get customer experience portals with your free trial of Method CRM!

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The post How to create a customer experience portal appeared first on Method.

In this ultimate guide, you’ll look at how to measure customer experience, and 7 customer experience improvement strategies you can use to create an exceptional customer journey. 

Let’s get started!

What is customer experience?

Customer experience is your customers’ holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand. It refers to how you engage with your customers at every stage of their buying journey, including your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. 

Is customer experience the same as customer service?

Although customer experience can be mistaken for customer service, there’s a clear difference between the two.

Customer service refers to a single event in the customer journey. Customer experience, on the other hand, is all the experiences your customer has with your brand.

Why creating great customer experiences is important

Now that you’ve learned what customer experience is, it’s crucial to understand why it’s so important for your business. 

Let’s dive into the top reasons for creating great customer experiences. 

Boost your sales

Companies with a superior customer experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors. 

Put simply, customers are willing to pay more for a better experience. But it’s more than just influencing that one customer. 71% of customers recommend a product or service after receiving a great experience. 

If your customer’s experience is not meeting their needs, it’s worth creating great experiences to support their journey.

Increase your customer loyalty and retention

What’s the best way to build customer loyalty? By offering an unforgettable experience. 

When a customer feels satisfied with their purchase process and the relationship they have with your brand, they are motivated to come back again. 

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

How to measure customer experience

So you’ve decided to focus on creating great customer experiences. But how do you measure your current customer experience?

Survey customer satisfaction

While there are different options available for customer satisfaction surveys, there’s no agreement on which one is best. A few popular ways to measure customer satisfaction are:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Measures on average how satisfied or unsatisfied customers are with your product or service. It’s best to try and get a CSAT score within 15 minutes of an interaction.
• Customer Effort Score (CES): Very similar to CSAT, but instead of asking how satisfied the customer is, you ask how easy their experience was. 
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauges how likely it is that a customer would recommend your company to a friend or a colleague. You get to measure satisfaction as well as loyalty by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. 

Identify reasons for customer churn

Customer churn refers to the percentage of customers that stop dealing with your product or service during a certain time period. 

Having some customer churn is inevitable, but when you have a high churn rate, you want to narrow down the reasons. 

Some common reasons are that you don’t understand your target audience well enough, or that your service simply isn’t up to scratch. 

By listening to your customers you can discover the emotion, intent, and effort behind their behavior. Usually, customers indirectly tell you their reason for churning before they leave. 

You can conduct a churn analysis to really nail down the cause of a high churn rate. 

Analyze support ticket trends

There’s a wealth of information coming from customers in support tickets. Analyzing this data at a large scale with AI helps you pinpoint the issues your customers are facing. 

It can also shed light on customer suggestions for improvement and in turn, create customer experience improvement strategies for you to action.

The impact of a bad customer experience

There are some expensive consequences to a bad customer experience. 

In fact, 32% of customers say they stop dealing with a brand after one bad experience. Not to mention how quickly news of that negative experience spreads through word of mouth. 

Aside from venting their frustrations out on social media, highly unsatisfied customers start looking for other providers right away. 

7 customer experience improvement strategies

So, now that you know the value of creating great customer experiences, what’s next?

Let’s look at the top customer experience improvement strategies for 2023.

1. Map your ideal customer experience

When it comes to customer experience improvement strategies, mapping your ideal customer experience is the first step. 

A customer experience map breaks down activities such as the phases of a purchasing journey, listing all their touchpoints. 

It helps you see your customer experience to highlight pain points and opportunities. 

It’s important your customer experience maps are based on customer research, so that they’re not internally-driven process flows! Creating customer personas and identifying customer goals goes a long way in creating your ideal experience. 

2. Build emotional connections with your customers

Great customer experiences are achieved when you create an emotional connection with a customer. 

Building an emotional connection can be as simple as offering perks on a customer’s birthday or helping them during their time of need. For example, upon hearing that a customer’s mother had passed away, Zappos arranged to pick up their product for return and sent flowers, at no cost. 

When a customer is emotionally attached and remembers how they feel when using a product or service, they become loyal customers. 

3. Take customer feedback seriously

It’s important to not only assess what’s working for your customers, but deal with negative feedback constructively to improve their experience. When you respond to a customer’s concerns, they feel heard and appreciated. 

In an ideal world, hearing the thoughts and sentiments of every customer would be possible. But as your small business grows, it’s not possible to have a 1:1 conversation with each customer. 

Luckily, technology allows you to take open-text feedback from customers and analyze it at scale, so you can increase your capacity to listen.

For example, tools like Text iQ make it possible to process large volumes of written feedback and give you the big-picture trends you need to know.

4. Develop quality frameworks for your team

A customer experience framework is a key part of customer experience improvement strategies. A good customer experience framework allows you to focus on what matters the most — your customers. 

A popular customer experience model is the 5 Category Framework model which has five central focuses: senses, processes, communication, expertise, and relationships.

According to the model, your aim is to improve each of these categories as it has a direct impact on  your customer’s experiences.

5. Optimize your tech stack to meet customer needs

AI and machine learning are built for creating great customer experiences. Some examples include chatbots available for your customers 24/7 and natural language processing that allows you to understand what customers mean in free-form texts. 

The latest technology allows you to scale faster and more affordably while meeting your customers needs. It’s essential to use them to your advantage in your customer experience improvement strategies.

6. Empower your customers with the information they need

Customer empowerment is about creating great customer experiences with valuable information and tools. 

When customers feel confident that they can control specific issues, their overall satisfaction and loyalty towards your product or service increases. 

Not to mention, your costs drop and efficiency increases when customers have the ability to resolve issues themselves. 

A few ways to focus on this strategy includes:

• Access to free video resources.
• Online chats with customer service in real-time. 
• Proactive emails based on personalized product recommendations.

7. Personalize your touchpoints with customers

Customers today have endless options to choose from, so it’s important to differentiate your offering. One way to do this is by personalizing experiences across the customer journey. 

For example, a website usually serves as your storefront or the first interaction with your brand, so think about how it affects the way your customers feel about your product or service.

User data from website visitors can help you create targeted promotions and recommendations. For example, Amazon offers shoppers personalized recommendations once an item is added to their cart. 

An Accenture study found that 91% of customers are more likely to buy from companies that:

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

But remember, creating great customer experiences doesn’t stop at the purchase stage. 

Building rapport by following up with a thank-you email or finding relevant, cross-selling opportunities are excellent ways to take your customer experience improvement strategies to the next level. 

Use CRM to create the best customer experience

A CRM tool allows you to go above and beyond expectations to deliver amazing experiences. Below are some of the ways a CRM takes you further.

Track customer interactions

Consistency is key in creating great customer experiences and building customer loyalty. Imagine that your customer connects with a live chat representative today but is forced to repeat all the information they sent in an email yesterday. 

It wouldn’t be the best experience for them, would it? 

An effective CRM:

• Tracks all customer interactions. 
• Stores all your customer information in one place.
• Streamlines customer communication.
• Builds a successful digital experience for your customers. 

Solve support requests

A good CRM allows you to create automated workflows that send notifications to your team to deal with a customer the second they send a service request. 

Ideally, you connect your CRM with Google Chat, Slack, Telegram, or the other communication channels you use. 

After a while, you notice that your customers face similar problems that can be tackled with similar solutions. 

Save your responses to common problems in your CRM as email templates to simplify your process and serve your customers sooner. 

Use time-based alerts from your CRM to take it a step further by ensuring that no customer requests fall through the cracks. 

Offer self-service with customer portals

Customers want to be in charge of their service experience, and resolve issues quickly without waiting for service reps. 

A self-service portal empowers customers with access to the resources they need to perform tasks independently. 

It’s a single entry-point to your business’ self-service functions, which include your knowledge base, FAQs, administrative capabilities, and more.

Enter Method CRM

Method CRM is a powerful tool that transforms your customer experiences. 

Method CRM’s customer portals allow customers easy, 24/7 access to their accounts online. Through these self-service portals, customers view and pay their invoices as well as update their information instantly.

All their information syncs to QuickBooks or Xero, so there’s no need to worry about double-data entry. 

Instead of cluttering your accounting data in QuickBooks or Xero with leads, you can manage your information in Method CRM. Then, have leads sync to your accounting software when they become customers. 

Method CRM also makes it easy to access client history anytime. You get a centralized view of past interactions, project details and accounting transactions. This makes it easy to deliver exceptional service to customers.

Recap: Creating great customer experiences

The experience that a customer has with your brand at every stage of the buying journey is critical, as it influences your sales and builds customer loyalty. 

Creating great customer experiences is possible with Method CRM, as it includes:

• 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.

See how to transform your customer experience with Method CRM!

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The post The ultimate guide to creating great customer experiences appeared first on Method.

However, creating a great customer experience isn’t as easy as it sounds. Read on for a complete guide to making a great customer experience that’s sure to make your brand a favorite among customers!

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) refers to what customers feel when dealing with your business or brand. It’s the sum of their experience with your company’s touchpoints, from browsing your storefront to post-sales support. 

Everything your company does impacts how customers see your business, so an outstanding customer experience is essential.

While every part of your company influences customer experience, four key elements measure the quality of customer interactions:

• Company culture: A great customer experience starts with the company itself. A company culture that puts customers at the forefront motivates employees to find new ways to delight customers, improving customer experience as a whole.
  
• Customer touchpoints: Touchpoints like your website, customer service reps, and social media accounts are the “face” customers see when they do business with you. Nobody likes to be greeted by a rude and scowling face, so user-friendly and empathetic touchpoints are essential.
  
• Consistency: No matter your industry, day-to-day conditions may vary, but your service quality shouldn’t fluctuate. Even having one bad day can negatively influence customer perceptions, so make sure that you deliver the best customer experience consistently.
  
• Customer satisfaction: An excellent customer experience leads to high customer satisfaction scores. Use reliable tools and metrics to get the most accurate data on your customer satisfaction.

Is there a difference between customer experience and customer service?

The main aim of customer experience and customer service is to make customers happy. However, there are some important differences between these two.

Let’s go deeper into them.

Control level

You typically have full control over the company’s customer service. For example, you can train your reps to offer new services and answer customer questions effectively.

However, you don’t have as much control over customer experience. You have some say on how you want to present your company to customers, but there are external factors (like the public perception of your business) that you can’t directly change.

Metrics

Customer service metrics are generally more technical and measure the performance of your reps. Common metrics include:

• Customer service ticket volume.
• Average response times.
• Average resolution times.
• Customer satisfaction score.

Meanwhile, customer experience metrics are geared toward how well your company can retain customers and how likely they’ll recommend your business to others. Key measures of customer experience include: 

• Customer retention rate. 
• Churn rate.
• NPS (Net Promoter Score).

Responsibility

Customer service is primarily the domain of your customer service managers and their team since they’re the ones interacting directly with customers. 

Meanwhile, your entire business plays a part in shaping the customer experience through its many touchpoints.

Why creating a great customer experience is vital to your success

Knowing how to make a great customer experience is important for your business. 

Why? Below are the top four benefits that arise from improving the customer experience. 

Understand your customers better

Listening to honest feedback and learning what customers want out are the keys to improving the customer experience. 

Learning about your customers means you can also provide more personalization on your touchpoints. For example, you can give special discounts on products they frequently buy.

Improve customer retention

A satisfied customer comes back for more business and is less likely to buy from your competitors. 

Another good reason to keep providing an enhanced customer experience is that many customers are likely to walk away from a company after one or two bad experiences. 

If you consistently deliver exceptional customer experience, you can build up enough goodwill that customers can forgive the occasional mistake.

Enhance your brand’s reputation

Consistently providing a great customer experience builds trust in your brand. If your brand is synonymous with great service and quality products, you can draw in customers with the strength of your company name alone.

This means more business, with fewer marketing efforts. 

Reduce your costs

Creating a great customer experience also helps you drive costs down. 

By analyzing customer engagement data, you can figure out which initiatives and marketing campaigns aren’t working and stop spending money on those efforts. This way, you can spend more money on the things that customers actually respond to.

What’s the impact of a poor customer experience?

If you don’t figure out how to make a great customer experience, your company will likely suffer down the line. 

Negative customer experiences can influence your business in many ways. Below are just a few. 

• Damaged reputation: The first victim of a bad customer experience is your brand. All it takes is a flurry of negative reviews from angry customers to tarnish your name overnight. With a damaged reputation, new potential customers are likely to look at your competitors first.
  
• Loss of current customers: A poor company reputation doesn’t just drive away new customers, but it also may cause your regulars to leave. If they feel that their needs aren’t consistently met, they may decide to do business with competitors instead.
  
• Decreased profits: Losing customers means you lose out on sales. Naturally, fewer sales directly impact how much money you make.

What makes for an enhanced customer experience?

Before getting into how to make a great customer experience, you need to know what a good CX looks like. The key traits of a company with an enhanced customer experience are that it:

• Listens to customers: You can’t provide a good customer experience without knowing what your customers need.
  
• Asks for customer feedback and values their opinion: Asking customers for feedback is an excellent way to learn their needs and how they see your company. 
  
• Has systems to collect and analyze feedback: If you’re taking feedback regularly, you need a system to do so. This way, you don’t have to craft reports from scratch every time you do a survey.
  
• Knows how to improve its customer journey: By understanding your customers, you’ll understand the potential issues in your customer journey. With that information, you can start drafting up ways to deliver an optimal experience.

How to make a great customer experience

Now that you’ve learned the what’s and why’s, it’s time to understand how to make a great customer experience. 

Below are eight ways to improve your customer experience. Read on and implement the ones that are most appropriate for your business.

1. Prioritize the needs and wants of your customers

A customer-centric mindset is essential to keep customers happy. Your entire team should strive to deliver a positive experience in whatever way they can. 

If you can engrain this belief into your team and culture, creating a great customer experience becomes that much easier.

For instance, the customer service team should always be ready to answer customer inquiries — demonstrating that their concerns are your top priority. 

On the other hand, your sales team can come up with new products that address customer pain points.

2. Implement employee ideas on improving the customer experience

Your customer-facing employees deal with your target buyer every day — which means they’ve heard their fair share of comments and suggestions. 

You want to open the door for their unique insights on how to make a great customer experience. Whenever you hit a wall in figuring out how to make a great customer experience, talk to your employees for suggestions.

Not only does this help you better your customer experience, but it also shows employees that they’re valued, improves morale and engagement, and makes them even more willing to help customers.

3. Encourage customer loyalty

Creating a great customer experience in itself encourages customer loyalty. 

However, you can foster even more loyalty through other means, such as special offers for longtime customers or an incentivized referral program. 

After all, customers are more likely to promote your business if they can get a discount or a free product every time they successfully refer a friend to your company.

4. Use the right technology to create a great customer experience.

Technology is one of the keys to an enhanced customer experience. Tools like email software and social media give you a lot of avenues to connect and delight customers. 

For example, customer relationship management (CRM) software tracks your customer base’s purchase history and preferences. This allows you to formulate personalized offers and show customers that you know who they are and what they like to buy.

Below is an example of how a CRM tool like Method benefits businesses eager to strengthen their customer experience. 

5. Lead with an omnichannel approach

Taking an omnichannel approach means putting up a consistent customer journey across multiple mediums and touchpoints. 

This is especially important because people consume multiple types of online and offline media every day. 

Presenting a unified journey and message across different channels makes it easier for people to connect with your business.

6. Focus on customer journey mapping

An enjoyable customer journey makes for a better customer experience. 

Map out your customer journey so you are confident in the customer experience you’re offering. 

Then, ask your employees to test out the customer journey to identify what issues the customer may encounter before rolling it out to the general public. From there, collect customer feedback and continue to iterate on it!

7. Make your appreciation for customers known

People love to be appreciated. As a business, you can show appreciation to customers in many ways, including:

• Free items, services or merchandise with purchases.
• Personalized marketing materials. 
• Tailor-made offers based on customer purchase history.
• Establishing real connections with customers.

Whatever you choose, the main thing is to make customers feel like they’re contributing to the success of your company. When people feel important and valued, they’re more likely to engage with your brand.

8. Provide an enhanced customer experience with online portals

Online customer portals, like the one provided by Method CRM, make things easier for you and your customers. These portals enable customers to pay for your products and services and send messages to customer support easily with minimal help from customer service reps. 

Below is an overview of what portals can do for your business!

Most customers will feel empowered when they can make transactions at their own pace. Plus, you shorten your payment times in the process!

Improving the customer experience: 8 actions to take

Delivering a positive customer experience builds customer loyalty and satisfaction, which results in higher retention and more new customers. 

Want to know how to make a great customer experience? Take action now by:

1. Prioritizing the needs and wants of your customers by listening to them.
   
2. Allowing employees to suggest customer experience improvement ideas and then implementing them.
   
3. Rewarding loyal customers with special offers and referral programs.
   
4. Using the right technology to connect with your customers like Method CRM!
   
5. Adopting an omnichannel approach to customer experience.
   
6. Mapping out your customer journey and addressing any issues.
   
7. Appreciating your customers through personalization and going the extra mile.
   
8. Implementing online portals to make the customer journey easier and more enjoyable.

With these eight steps in mind, you’re bound to delight customers and win more hearts!

See how Method CRM strengthens your customer experience!

Image credit: Sam Lion via Pexels

The post How to make a great customer experience: The ultimate guide appeared first on Method.