How B2B Customer Portals Are Changing the Game: The Future of Client Management

As an owner of a digital marketing agency, you’re, no doubt, well aware of the following trends: 

• 75% of B2B customers prefer self-service options over contacting a support representative.
• Customers are 34% more likely to buy from companies that prioritize customer service. 
• A 5% increase in customer retention can translate into a 25% to 95% jump in revenue.

This article will show how a B2B customer portal can help your digital marketing agency stay on top of these trends as well as reap countless other benefits. 

Not only does a B2B customer portal empower your SMB clients with self-service capabilities, but it also enhances your client communication and helps you and them make data-driven decisions. 

This leads to higher client satisfaction and improved customer retention, meaning that your digital marketing agency is prepared to weather the rigorous competition of the marketing landscape.

What Is a B2B Customer Portal?

In a nutshell, a B2B customer portal is an online platform. 

B2B customer portals serve as a one-stop destination where your clients can manage their accounts, review updates on the marketing campaigns that you run on their behalf, communicate with your teams, and even access analytics and performance reports. 

By centralizing resources and communication, B2B customer portals streamline client management, fostering better client relationships.

Key Features of B2B Customer Portals

The customer experience management market worldwide was valued at $7.6 billion in 2020, representing a 16.9% year-over-year increase. This means that there are lots of B2B customer portals to choose from. 

Before signing the deal, you should take time to explore the essential features that differentiate a substandard B2B customer portal from a superior-quality one:

• User-Friendly Interface: A B2B customer portal must be easy to navigate, meaning it should have a clean layout, a clearly labeled menu, and a search bar. 

• Centralized Access to Tools and Resources: A B2B customer portal brings account management tools, marketing resources, and project updates under one roof.

• Collaboration and Communication Features: Many B2B customer portals offer built-in communication and collaboration tools such as messaging systems, task management features, and file-sharing capabilities.

• • Access to Customer Support and FAQs: Any B2B customer portals include direct access to customer support services, such as live chat, troubleshooting guides, ticketing systems, or FAQs. 

• Automated Reporting and Analytics: It’s important that the clients can track marketing KPIs within the portal that pulls marketing data thanks to integrations with 3rd party tools.

The Benefits of a B2B Customer Portal for Your Marketing Agency

It’s easy to see how the aforementioned features of a top-notch B2B customer portal translate into the following benefits.

Time is money for busy SMB owners. A B2B customer portal with a well-designed interface and automation capabilities can significantly improve clients' satisfaction when they interact with your agency because they can quickly access any information they need. This significantly improves their productivity and saves both your employees and clients from needing to perform routine manual tasks.

Cost-effective solutions translate into faster revenue growth for your marketing agency. It’s a no-brainer to conclude that a B2B customer portal that centralizes all communication in one hub reduces costs associated with phone calls and subscriptions for enterprise communication solutions.

Also, a B2B customer portal with superior automation features can help you keep your team small and focused on key tasks that require human skills.

Top B2B Customer Portals

Now, that you’re well prepared to select a B2B customer portal tailored to your needs, it’s time to take a closer look at some of the options available out there.

1. Vendasta’s Customer Portal: Business App

Vendasta’s Business App is an all-in-one B2B customer portal that empowers your clients to view how their digital marketing efforts are performing from a single, intuitive platform.

Some examples are Reputation Management, Listings Management, and Social Media Marketing. This is possible thanks to Business App’s integration with third-party tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Business App helps you run your operations seamlessly with features like Inbox Messaging and Meeting Scheduler. Integrating with 3rd-party products like QuickBooks, Jobber, and Zapier, Business App makes it a breeze for you to meet your clients’ needs, which range from managing invoices to providing quotes.

With Business App Pro, you can also automate your workflows. Check out this tutorial on how to automate review requests:

A cherry on top is that Business App is a white-label platform. This means you can customize it to reflect your unique brand identity, such as adding your logo and setting your color scheme. 

Since Vendasta’s mission is to help marketing agencies empower local businesses to succeed, the Business App is fine-tuned to match the preferences of SMB owners. It is easy to use, and Vendasta has plenty of learning resources to make it a breeze for users to navigate the Business App.

2. Salesforce Customer Portal

Salesforce Service Cloud is designed to serve clients from a range of industries, including insurance and technology companies. Through its integration with CRM, this B2B customer portal provides tools for the following processes:

• Case Management
• Omni-Channel Support
• Automation
• Analytics

This B2B customer portal enables service teams to instantaneously access data about their customers to provide them with personalized support. The portal eliminates the need to manually route tickets since it relies on AI to assign tasks to the most qualified agents, whether human or non-human (think AI webchat). 

Also, Salesforce’s B2B customer portal has a robust knowledge management system in place. It helps your support team save time because customers can find the help they need by searching for knowledge articles in the Help Center. 

3. BigCommerce Customer Portal

B2B Edition helps businesses from various industries manage their front- and back-end B2B processes, such as:

• Account Management
• Quotes
• Orders
• Invoices
• Data Management

Here are some of the features that BigCommerce’s B2B portal offers B2B customers: 

• The Buyer Portal login and registration page
• Viewing and creating quotes
• Creating and managing Shopping Lists
• Quick order tools like Quick Add, Bulk Upload, and repurchasing products
• Address book management
• Invoice management

It is worth noting that while BigCommerce’s B2B portal helps companies manage orders, track inventory, and engage customers, BigCommerce is chiefly known as an e-commerce solution that helps e-commerce companies fill gaps in their operations by accessing support from a wide range of trusted technology providers, e-commerce designers, developers, and marketers.

4. Copilot B2B Customer Portal

Copilot has a white-label B2B customer portal tailored for marketing agencies. With this solution, clients can take control of the following tasks:

• Checking real-time project status updates
• Accessing help articles
• Paying invoices
• Signing forms

This B2B customer portal has integration capabilities, including with Airtable and Calendly. It allows integration with your accounting software and sales CRM. Copilot streamlines workflows for marketing agencies by empowering them with CRM automation, such as sending out notifications via the portal or email.

5. Zoho B2B Customer Portal

Zoho’s Customer Portal allows clients to access quotes, invoices, and timesheets in a single place. This boosts collaboration and takes customer satisfaction to the next level. The portal also helps share project updates, such as giving clients visibility into logged and unbilled hours.

As an owner of a marketing agency, you, no doubt, know what hassle it may be to get reviews from your clients. Zoho’s portal allows you to ask for reviews through the Contacts section and share them on social media.

How Vendasta's Business App Stands Out from Other B2B Customer Portals

Let’s take a closer look at why Vendasta's Business App may be the best choice for your marketing agency. 

While other B2B customer portals may be designed with B2B companies from various industries in mind, the Business App was created specifically for digital marketing agencies serving SMBs. It has unsurpassed white-label capabilities and is easy to use and cost-effective.

Even with this ICP in mind, the Business App can accommodate growth and works well for both small and large agencies. This is good news for you if you’re just starting out. When you choose to partner with Vendasta, you choose a smooth sail for your agency that won’t be impeded by the headache of switching platforms later down the line.

The fact that the Business App is tailored to marketing agencies and their clients means that it takes care of all the processes essential for running a marketing agency. It has a dashboard that gives your clients all the necessary updates and it also helps you upsell by giving your clients access to the store with additional products that may further boost their marketing success.

Last but not least, as was mentioned earlier, adopting any new platform is a hassle. Vendasta offers 24/7 access to support, training, and extensive educational resources for both you and your clients.

Real-World Success: How Businesses Are Thriving with Business App

If you’re still having doubts about Vendasta's Business App, the following case study may help you make up your mind. 

A well-established marketing agency, E-Marketing Associates, lacked a centralized dashboard for their digital reporting. This negatively impacted their client communications. With Vendasta’s Business App, the agency succeeded in consolidating all its reporting needs into a single, easy-to-use dashboard.

The results of the partnership between Vendasta and E-Marketing Associates were outstanding. The agency has succeeded in becoming an indispensable resource of valuable guidance to the pallet manufacturers, auto body repair shops, and hotels they serve.

Why Vendasta's Business App Is the Future of Client Management

With generative AI making waves in the marketing industry, you may wonder whether Vendasta is ready to embrace this trend. The answer is as follows. Vendasta already has new AI-powered features. It has added AI webchats and AI-powered automation to its platform as well as to its core products and services, and it’s not planning to stop.

Dedicated to transparent customer communication, Vendasta helps its clients stay on top of its updates with the help of the changelog. Vendasta also values feedback from its partners who can submit their ideas via the Feedback channel.

Conclusion

If you’re an owner of a marketing agency that wants to boost your customer service by offering them a white-label B2B customer portal, Vendasta’s Business App may be your final stop. 

Interested to learn more? Request a demo today!