How to tell your families about the Customer Portal

This article gives some guidance on how to notify your families of the Customer Portal, its functionality and how they can use it.

We have attached some documents to this article that you can download and send to customers as "How to" guides. We have attached them in word format so that you can remove any functionality that you won't be using (e.g. if you will not be accepting online payments). We suggest before uploading these into your site that you convert them to pdf format. If you want to send them out to families, you would attach them to your E-mail message template (Adding an Attachment to an Email).

What is my centre's unique Customer Portal URL?

You can find this on your Configuration screen under System Information. Your portal URL address includes your unique site ID number that starts with b110.

Launching / Introducing your Customer Portal to your families for the first time - entire customer base

Make sure you have configured your customer portal setup: Configuring Your Customer Portal.

If you want to receive online payments, you need to have first set up an account with Pin Payments. If you need assistance configuring your system for payments, contact Support. If you do want to accept payments but have not set up your pin payments account, you can still launch your portal to utilise all other aspects, there is no need to wait. You can always notify your customers that "coming soon - you will be able to make payments online".

Your first step in notifying your customer base is to create an E-Mail (or SMS) Message Template. (How to Create or Edit SMS and Email Templates). If you want to send an SMS, we suggest a shorter message followed up with an email with more detail.

The content of the email message template can be something very simple, for example:

_____________________________________________

Dear Families,

We are excited to bring you our Customer Portal! Please find attached information on how to register and use the portal.

Please click on this link to get started:

<insert your unique portal link>

You can save the portal link as a bookmark on your phone or computer for ease of access next time you need to use it.

If you need any further assistance, please contact the centre.

________________________________________________________

Or it can be more in-depth, such as:

______________________________________________

Dear Families,

We are excited to bring you our Customer Portal!

What you can do in the customer portal:

• View your lesson dates
• Mark your child away for their lesson
• Keep track of and book your make-up lessons
• Follow your child’s progress through our skill based program
• View certificates issued, download or print them and share to family members or Facebook
• View our Policies and Agreements
• Update your personal details
• View your account balance
• Pay your fees online with Visa or Mastercard 
• Message us directly.

Click on this link to get started: <insert your unique portal link>

Alternatively, go to our website or Facebook page and click on the link to the customer portal.

If you need any further assistance, please see the attached help documents or contact the centre.

______________________________________________

Once you are satisfied with your message template, you would need to send this out to your active clients in a Communication Campaign (Creating Email & SMS Campaigns).

Notifying new customers (ongoing after you have launched)

To notify your new customers, we recommend including the customer portal link and information either in your Student Enrolment Advice Email message template, or in your Welcome email template (if you have created one) that you send to all new customers. This lets them know how to access the portal. For example, your Student Enrolment Advice email base includes the following:

Hi %%FAMILYNAME%%,

Thanks for contacting %%COMPANYNAME%%. Your current enrolments are listed below for your reference.
%%CURRENTENROLMENTS%%

Please contact us on %%COMPANYTELEPHONE%% to make any amendments to the above information.

Regards,

%%COMPANYNAME%%

%%COMPANYTELEPHONE%%

You could amend it to include information on registering for the Customer Portal.

You can also include your portal link in your Statement Email message template, and also on your statement itself either as a "receipt message" (Adding a Message to All Statements (Receipt messages)) and / or on the bottom of your statements in a custom field.

For the custom statement field, go to Configuration > System setup > Statement, tick the "Custom payment option enabled" box, enter your heading and text in the fields below, scroll to the bottom and "Save changes":

This custom payment option on the statement would then display in the bottom section of your statement as:

Last updated 1st August 2022