What should be included in a customer portal?

The Core

1. Login – secure, with password reset functionality and no barriers
2. View – the current status of your own process
3. Act – report something, request, upload

With these three features, a portal is already useful. Everything else builds upon this.

What is useful afterward

• Exchange files instead of via email
• Receive notifications on status changes
• View invoices and documents
• Multiple users per customer with different permissions
• Reports for the customer themselves

Where portals really fail

Not due to missing functions, but due to outdated data. A portal where the status has not changed for three weeks will no longer be accessed. After that, the customer calls again – and you have another system to maintain, without any relief.

This leads to the most important requirement: The portal must automatically extract its data from the system where actual work is done. A portal that requires manual maintenance is already dead from the start.

Legal Considerations

• Secure access data and sessions properly
• Roles: Who sees which processes? Not trivial for company customers with multiple contacts
• Deletion concept also for portal accounts
• Accessibility: For many providers, the requirements of the Accessibility Enhancement Act apply from June 28, 2025 – this must be clarified before the draft is finalized, not afterward

The Honest Benefit

A portal saves calls and emails – but only if it is more up to date than phone consultations. This benchmark is the actual requirement.