Classic customer portals are missing the mark. They're barely used, have high barriers, and deliver too little value. Yet many companies keep investing in them.
The problem? Portals are too often designed from the inside out ("let's put everything in one environment") instead of from the customer's needs. They ask effort from the client instead of taking work off their plate.
Your clients have dozens of vendors and partners. If everyone expects their own login and interface, it becomes unsustainable. The friction of "yet another portal" is often greater than just sending an email. Result: ghost portals. Expensive to build, barely used.
And then there's the Shadow Support trap. "It's in the portal," but your team is still emailing that PDF, manually looking up a status, or sending screenshots because the client can't find what they need. You're paying double: the portal and the workaround next to it.
The shift we see at high-performing companies is simple: stop thinking in screens and features. Think in flows that remove work.
No extra destination, no unnecessary login, no new interface to learn. The functionality comes to the customer in the tools they already use. Documents arrive automatically. Approvals via a magic link. Status updates that don't say "in progress," but include expected date, impact, and next step.
And this is realistic today. Integrations, event-driven architectures, and Agentic AI make it possible. The barrier to getting started? Lower than you think.
