While the internet and the related technologies enabling collaboration and client outreach opened up tremendous possibilities, it also introduced its own challenges. In today’s day and age, it’s almost vital for businesses to operate on a 24/7 basis to ensure availability and convenience for their customers. Plus, with more and more businesses transacting online, more […]
While the internet and the related technologies enabling collaboration and client outreach opened up tremendous possibilities, it also introduced its own challenges. In today's day and age, it's almost vital for businesses to operate on a 24/7 basis to ensure availability and convenience for their customers. Plus, with more and more businesses transacting online, more and more digital information is being shared and stored.
Naturally, this also means that the issue of data misuse, breaches, loss of information, or cases of fraud and phishing, also started happening. Hence, businesses started looking out for a secure option with which sensitive business data could be shared online, without having to worry about security issues. Secure client portals were the answer to this solution, especially for businesses that constantly handle highly sensitive data.
What is a Secure Client Portal?
As the name suggests, it is a portal that enables safe and secure communication between businesses and its customers; for example, banks offering online transactions, or any business obtaining sensitive information to transact with their customers. The usage of a secure portal ensures that the customers feel at ease sharing their personal and confidential information, knowing it is going to be dealt with, considering its sensitive nature.
While customers are granted access to the secure client portal and feel a sense of security transacting through it, it is also true that each customer would only be granted access on a need basis. So, no customer can access any other customer’s data as the permissions for the same will be restricted in a secure client portal. Each customer’s business data is treated with equal care and sensitivity, and hence, privacy and security are maintained to the maximum possible level, using secure gateways. Simply put, secure client portals are a way to collaborate efficiently, in a completely secure environment.
It is obvious, then, that a secure client portal can indeed solve the aforementioned challenges of online data management. However, apart from security, these portals do offer a few other benefits that businesses and their customers can leverage upon.
High Availability
The convenience of being able to access the portal any time, from anywhere, using any browser or device, is a massive benefit that secure client portals offer. FileCloud offers this via its High Availibility architecture. Based on their permissions, they can access any file, or information, can download, work, and share files at ease. This ensures a 24/7 availability and also minimizes the inconvenience of time zone differences, enabling seamless employee collaboration over even international borders.
This would also result in increased productivity for the business, as the work happens faster, more seamlessly, and can be seen by necessary stakeholders through their secure logins. Time is money in today’s rapid business scenarios, and in turn, your customers will quickly realize that they are saving on time and money.
Improved Client Experiences
By creating branded client portals, businesses can engage more easily and confidently with their clients. This will lead to better client relationships through improved client experiences. Faster transactions are also a good way to enhance client experiences. After all, it's not uncommon for today's folk to shy away from calls, chats, and emails -- not to mention the risks of sharing sensitive information through chat and email.
Secure client portals solve this problem by enabling file and information sharing easily with the requisite permissions to ensure work is done. Highly customizable features with complete ownership and management of data, make secure client portals a wise choice for companies that regularly handle files and information of highly sensitive nature such as invoices, purchase orders, legal documents, financial statements, tax returns, and personal and payment-related information.
Of course, anyone can tell you that improved customer experiences mean greater customer retention, as well as an influx of new customers from word of mouth. These are the intangible benefits that gained from the usage of secure client portals. Today, many industries admit that secure client portals have revolutionized their services and have helped them raise the bar.
Cost-Effective
In the long run, secure client portals can bring down your cost of operations by a considerable amount. This is especially true if you decide to go with cloud service providers, instead of setting up a client portal of your own. Cloud providers are bound by the regulations and compliances to provide the requisite security as per agreed standards. Based on the flexibility offered by them and the nature of your business, it's likely that you could negotiate a reasonable deal with these providers that could greatly benefit your business at an affordable investment. When considering considering all the delays, collaboration or customer issues that otherwise keep cropping up, not to mention the hassle of compromised security, secure client portals based in cloud services could greatly maximize your ROI.
FileCloud lets you run your portal under your own business domain and offers unparalleled custom branding capabilities. Create a secure client portal for file sharing in minutes using FileCloud.
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