How to: The benefits of a customer portal

You’re likely familiar with customer portals even if you never think of them by that term.

What is a portal?

Portals are specifically designed, secure websites which often serve as a single source of information.

• Web portals aggregate information and links so you can have an easier time accessing the web.
• AOL, Netscape and Yahoo were among the first, primarily offering search and email services.
• Google is the most popular and prominent web portal today. The company started as a search engine, but now offers many more services and applications, including email, map, calendar, word processing and spreadsheet programs, document storage, and much more.

Portals make it easy to be organized and productive with so many services in one place!

You can think of a customer portal as similar to a web portal, but one which operates within the context of a specific website. It makes accessing the services of that site much easier by organizing and storing important information.

Amazon, for example, will store your billing and shipping information to make placing an order much easier. Or, your utility company may allow you to monitor energy consumption, access tech support and pay bills through their customer portal.

Portals can take other forms, too, organizing any particular area of interest. Expedia is good example for the travel industry.

Regardless of the context and where you use them, portals are there to make your life easier!