There was a time when portals were completely misunderstood and seen as relics of a bygone era. However, nowadays, portals have become essential in ensuring an outstanding customer experience, which is essential for any organization that wants to thrive.
The Benefits of Using a Portal
Portals offer a wide range of benefits, including a more personalized experience for customers, a more cost-effective solution, and increased functionality.
Personalizing the Customer Experience
Enterprises with revenues of $1 billion per year can increase their earnings by $700 million per annum within three years if they invest in improving the customer experience, according to the Temkin Group. SaaS companies can increase their revenues by $1 billion.
It definitely pays to invest in improving the customer experience. One important aspect of the customer experience is personalization. However, basic personalization like using a customer’s name isn’t enough. Customers expect far more. In fact, 31% of customers expect a far greater level of personalization than they are currently receiving.
Furthermore, 76% of consumers find it important to receive personalized discounts based on their shopping history, while 48% of users have purchased from a competing brand because the experience was not sufficiently personalized.
Portals can make personalization far easier, especially since a good system will come with a wide range of features already built in to help you do just that.
Using a portal will help you centralize all customer information, making it easier for your marketing and customer service departments to offer personalized experiences.
Increased Functionality
Developing a fully customized solution from the ground up might seem like the most effective course of action to ensure that the system aligns with your business needs.
However, you’ll be wasting a lot of resources on building a foundation that already exists, when you could be channeling those resources into more effectively personalizing an existing system.
It’s similar to a mobile app developer building an entirely new operating system and then creating an app for it, when they could be developing apps for iOS and/or Android.
With a portal like Liferay, you gain access to a wide range of features out-of-the-box that will streamline your operations. Furthermore, it has been designed for easy integration with other systems.
Since it already has all the features available, you can simply focus on personalizing the system to your needs, thereby setting yourself apart in the market. It will also ensure that you can create a truly amazing experience for your customers.
A More Cost-Effective Solution
Building a custom solution from the ground up is always going to be more expensive than purchasing a portal that’s ready to use out-of-the-box. It will already have many of the features and functionality you need so that you don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”
With a solution like Liferay, you won’t need such a large development team because there’s far less code to maintain. It will also save you a lot of time and aggravation since everything already works together seamlessly.
The Advantages of Open Source Technology
Open source technology may have had a poor reputation in terms of security once upon a time due to misunderstandings. However, perceptions have changed.
It used to be believed that open source meant anyone could take advantage of bugs. This is false. Companies are investing heavily into the security of their platforms. Simply what open source means is when you purchase a platform like Liferay you receive access to all the code, you paid for it so you should own it. So now you can more effectively build customizations that integrate seamlessly with the portal without creating security problems.
Furthermore, open source is also far more cost-effective, allowing enterprises to redirect a portion of their investment to customization.
A portal can be extremely powerful and makes for an excellent investment in the customer experience, which can skyrocket earnings. However, portals have to be done right, which is why it’s always best to rely on experienced professionals who know what they’re doing.
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