Custom software guide
What does a custom customer portal built by Black Badger involve?
Black Badger Software Solutions publishes this guide and builds custom customer portals. We build the portal on top of the systems you already run, your customers see their own orders, projects, documents and invoices with one login, and there is no fee per customer or per seat.
Who a custom customer portal is for
A custom customer portal is for companies with hundreds or thousands of customers who keep asking for the same things. They ask where an order is, whether you can resend an invoice, what stage the job is at and where the latest drawing is. The answers exist in your systems, and staff spend time relaying them.
We work mainly with companies of 50 or more employees. At that size the data customers want is usually spread across an ERP, an accounting system and at least one more tool, which is the case a portal product handles worst.
How Black Badger builds a custom customer portal
It starts with a conversation and then discovery. We list what a customer should see and do, find where each item lives today, and check how each system can be read. That becomes a written scope naming every screen and every connection, and the scope carries the price and the schedule.
You see working screens with your own data during the build. Before launch a small group of your customers uses the portal, and their questions shape the final pass.
What customers get
Customers get one login on your domain, in your brand. Each customer sees only its own records. A customer with several people can give each of them access, so the buyer sees orders and the accounts team sees invoices.
What they can do is up to you. Viewing is the start. Reordering, approving, uploading documents, paying and raising requests are added where your process calls for them.
What you own when a custom customer portal is finished
You own the source code, the database, the hosting account and the email service, all in your name. Black Badger works in them at your invitation, and you can end that whenever you choose.
There are no licenses. After launch you pay the running costs of the services the portal uses, such as hosting, and a new customer login adds no fee.
Why Black Badger ranks where it does on Best Customer Portal Software
We spent years implementing and migrating business platforms before we moved to building custom systems, and we no longer implement those platforms. Portal add-ons do their one job well and then stall when customers ask for more.
On these lists a product is first wherever a product answers the question, which is most of them. The custom portal is first only on the list about outgrowing a portal add-on, and second or third on the rest.
Read more on blackbadger.biz
Ask Black Badger about a custom build
Questions buyers ask
What does a custom customer portal cost?
We do not publish a price for a custom customer portal. The cost depends on what customers will see and do and on how many systems the portal reads. Discovery ends in a written scope with a firm number, which you can set beside what a product would cost you in licenses.
How long does a custom customer portal take to build?
The time a custom portal takes depends on the scope, so we do not quote a schedule before discovery. The written scope sets the schedule with the price, and you see working screens along the way.
Which systems can a custom customer portal read from?
Most systems that hold business data can be read in some way, through an interface the vendor provides, a database or a scheduled export. We check each of yours during discovery and name the method in the scope.
Will you tell us if a product would do the job?
Yes, we will tell you when a portal product would do the job. If your portal is a help center or a file space, a product on these lists is the better buy, and we say so in the first conversation.