Creating Customer & Partner Portals in Salesforce

Imagine a world where customers spend hours on the internet to find product specs, where they are left in the dark about their order status, or where they are lost in a labyrinthine phone menu to get a simple service-related answer. 

Image a world where business partners struggle to access critical resources or where they drown in a sea of manual processes.

Now imagine a world where you can communicate with customers and partners 24/7/365, wherever they are, in a centralized hub that will improve overall satisfaction and loyalty. 

You don’t have to imagine it! You can make it a reality with Salesforce partner and customer portals!  

Salesforce Portals: General Overview 

But what are portals? Portals are secure online platforms where businesses can provide their customers or partners with access to specific information, services, and resources. Customer engagement portals are designed to enhance customer experiences through access to information such as account details, order status, product information, support resources, and more, whereas partner portals focus on external partners, such as vendors, distributors, resellers, or other types of business partners. 

Partner relationship management can be done with dedicated PRM solutions. Partner portals are user-friendly interfaces that sit on top of PRM software and that provide the following:

• A central hub where partners can access product information, marketing materials, training modules, and sales tools. 
• A collaborative space where partners can share information, communicate effectively, and work together to drive sales and support initiatives. 
• A tracking portal where partners can follow their progress on joint projects. 

Let’s take a look at Salesforce as a portal creation tool. 

What is a Salesforce Partner Portal? 

Salesforce offers one of the best partner management software solutions. Salesforce PRM includes a portal that serves as a centralized and personalized location where partners can access resources, training materials, deal registration, lead distribution, and marketing developments quickly and efficiently. Salesforce PRM integrates seamlessly with Salesforce Experience Cloud to create secure partner portals.

Salesforce’s partner relationship management tools allow businesses to customize partner portals to reflect their unique brand. Salesforce PRM seamlessly integrates with Salesforce CRM, and companies can manage their partner relationships within a unified platform. 

What is a Salesforce Customer Portal?

Salesforce is widely regarded as the number 1 customer relationship management (CRM) software solution in the market. It caters to businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises, with various plans and functionalities. It, therefore, makes sense to harness the robust features, scalability, and wide range of integrations to build your customer portal in Salesforce. 

Salesforce Customer Portals are digital platforms where businesses can provide their customers with self-service access to various resources, information, and services. These portals are powered by Salesforce and fully integrated with Salesforce CRM, so customers can update personal information, manage subscriptions, and initiate support requests.

Customer portals facilitate better communication between a business and its customers at any time or place and are perfect for product information, order management, and support requests. 

Salesforce Experience Cloud Partner Portals: Portal Creation Basic Guide

Let’s look at how to create a portal in Salesforce, whether a customer or partner portal:

1. Click the Gear icon in your Salesforce app to open the Setup.
2. Use the Quick Find box to search for Digital Experiences and click the Settings option.
3. Select the Enable Digital Experiences option. Your domain name is shown in the following format:
   • MyDomainName.my.site.com
4. Click the Save button. 
5. If you were not directed to All Sites automatically, use the Quick Find box to search for Digital Experiences and select the All Sites option.
6. Click the New button. 
7. Use any Experience Builder template with custom theme layout components.
8. Click the Get Started button.
9. Enter a site name and URL. 
10. Click the Create button.  

Alternatively, here is how to create a partner portal:

1. Click the Gear icon in your Salesforce app to open the Setup.
2. Use the Quick Find box to search for Partner Experience and click the Launch Digital Experience button.
3. Use the menu items on the left of the screen to configure the following:
   • Components: Use the list to drag-and-drop components to the page.
   • Theme: Use this option to change your theme in terms of the following:
     1. Theme template
     2. Colors
     3. Images
     4. Font
     5. Theme Settings
   • Page Structure: Use this option to configure the page structure, including the following:
     1. Header
     2. Content
     3. Sidebar
     4. Content and Template Footers
   • Settings: Use this option to view and edit the main properties of your site.

Partner Portal Examples

• Salesforce offers a Partner Community that allows partners to access sales and marketing resources, collaborate with other partners, and register deals.
• Microsoft’s Partner Network provides a portal for partners to access training materials, marketing resources, and support tools.
• The Adobe Partner Portal offers partners resources to access sales and marketing materials, product information, and training resources.

Customer Portal Examples

• Apple has a Support Community where customers can ask questions, share tips, and get help from other Apple users.
• Nike’s Member Portal offers exclusive content, products, and experiences for Nike members.
• The Google Customer Portal allows customers to access support resources, manage their accounts, and get help with Google products and services.

Salesforce Partner and Customer Portal Features

Why not use Titan Web to create a no-code customer portal or a partner management platform fully integrated with Salesforce? Titan Web provides a range of features for building and customizing websites, such as easy-to-use drag-and-drop page builders, templates, and integrations with other Titan DXP components (such as Titan Survey, Titan Forms, and Titan Flow). 

Titan Web allows you to customize the look and feel of your portals to suit your brand. You can also be sure that your site is secure with authenticated user access, one-time pins, SSO, and content management according to user roles and permissions. Your portal can be configured to display seamlessly across different devices. With Titan Web, you can build portals with Experience Cloud using Lightning Web Components (LWC). 

Overall, Titan Web is an excellent option to create customer portals and partner portals, especially for businesses already using Salesforce.