Customers have a growing expectation of the value each of their vendors must deliver and are seeking the path of least resistance in making purchasing decisions. Supplier preference is maintained where vendors clearly communicate their competitive advantage and where the package is perceived to add “real” value. A customer information portal offers both an opportunity to communicate your competitive advantage and clearly define your value-added services thereby strengthening your relationships with customers (strategic benefits) while at the same time, lowering transaction cost (operational benefits).

What is a Customer Information Portal?

It is a single point of access for the creation, management and delivery of your corporate communications program. This Web-based portal is an interactive online communications hub for customers, prospects, employees and trading partners. The communications hub includes customer relationship management tools designed for mid-sized businesses like yours. Businesses that need:

• A fast solution that you can implement now – not months from now;
• An affordable, cost-effective solution with a quick clear payback;
• A flexible solution that fits your unique business communications needs; and
• An easy-to-use solution that improves productivity and user acceptance.

Using the latest Internet technologies, the portal delivers outstanding benefits for managing your business communications with internal (employees) and external partners (customers, prospects and vendors) while also tracking the effectiveness of your communications programs. Customers have a secure portal for receiving personalized messages and gaining access to business systems, employees have a central hub where they receive the information they need to effectively conduct their job and administrators proactively manage each audience and send targeted messages with powerful back-end content management and communication tools.

What are the Strategic benefits of a Customer Information Portal?

• Build customer preference and loyalty through responsive, interactive communications
• Better reach in both existing markets and new markets
  

  Figure 1 (Source: The Momentum Group, Dec. 2001): The largest impact of business Internet solutions on increasing revenue is in attracting new customers (71%)

• Create and deploy new products and services faster.
• Achieve market leadership.
• Expand sales efforts by freeing sales representatives from order taking in order to develop more meaningful relationship-building activity with existing and new accounts.
• Allow more informed decision making at every level in the organization.
• Set your company apart and stay one step ahead of new competitors
  

  Figure 2 (Source: The Momentum Group, Dec. 2001): 57% of companies surveyed indicated that the impact of an Internet business solution was increased customer attraction, 54% increased customer satisfaction and 37% increased customer retention.

What are the operational benefits of a Customer Information Portal:

• Optimize business processes for improved cost efficiencies
  

  Figure 3 (Source: The Momentum Group, Dec. 2001): 51% of companies surveyed indicated that a Customer Information portal increased workforce efficiencies, 68% achieved new process efficiencies and 35% improved inventory management. Northwest Airlines reduced processing costs by 80% per online transaction (http://crec.bus.utexas.edu).

• Finding information becomes easier and faster. You do not have to page through endless catalogs; instead, you simply use powerful search tools to access the information database.
• You can get prices and availability information at any time at the touch of a button
• Orders can be processed much faster and more economically.
  • According to Ernst and Young, the average traditional transaction costs $90, while the average transaction cost through a web enabled customer portal is $4.44. (Source: American Express/Ernst & Young, June 2002)
  • The greatest impact is on smaller less profitable orders. Transaction Size At Commerce-Enabled Web Sites (Source: ActivMedia Research)

    Size	Sample	B2C	B2B
    $1 - 50	20%	22%	5%
    $51 - 100	13%	15%	5%
    $101 - 500	27%	26%	36%
    $501 - 1000	9%	10%	5%
    $1000 - 10,000	23%	20%	41%
    $10,000 +	8%	8%	8%
    Average	$4,622	$4,450	$5,580
    Median	$300	$244	$800

    
    

• Multiple points of data entries are avoided, thus reducing potential sources of error.