Customer Portals
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008In this present economy, one thing that companies can do to increase their customer loyalty and reduce costs is put in a Customer Portal, also called a B2B eCommerce Website. A Customer Portal is a web site which a companies customers can log into and perform tasks like place orders, check orders status, change basic information, and look up their account information.
Since the companies we deal with are exclusively Navision / Dynamics NAV Manufacturers and Wholesale Distributors, the customer portals we help implement are B2B (business to business) websites with additional functions. The difference in a B2B rather then a B2C (Business to Consumer, or Individual) is that the functionality must be different; for example, in a B2B, companies normally order on account, and when they place orders, they often copy orders from past ones, or order from an order pad - with many line items. B2C ordering is normally for one or a few items, with one time customers, and options like gift wrapping. Some of our customers have B2C web sites, but let’s chat about them in a later post!
A lot of our customers are Consumer Packaged Goods companies (CPG), and while their larger customers order via EDI, the smaller retailers do their ordering at night, when most order entry staffs are closed. So they prefer to order via the customer portal. And the information goes directly into the Dynamics NAV system, no one needs to re-type a fax in, or enter it over the phone. Even better, when a customers wants to check on a status of an order, they can login instead of calling Customer Service.
We have found that with the cost savings of Customer Service time, the added benefit of getting orders directly into the system (rather then fax or hand entered) and the customer preference of anytime ordering and information make customer portals a great investment.
