Customer portal: let them place their own orders
Free extension Beta
Switch on the portal, invite your customers, choose which stores they order from, answer their messages and remove access when needed.
What it is for
The customer portal gives each of your customers (cafés, hotels, shops, restaurants) their own access to place orders with you, whenever they like and from their phone. They see your catalogue with their prices, order, repeat last week's order and message you if they have a question.
No more orders by WhatsApp or phone that someone has to write up: they arrive already typed, go into Sales › Orders and are ready to produce. It is set up by the administrator or the manager; messages are answered by the administrator, the manager or the salesperson. It is in beta: it works, and we keep improving it with your feedback.
This feature is already available, but we keep improving it with your feedback. If something doesn't behave as you expect, let us know in the chat.
Before you start
- You need at least one store (Integral plan) with its catalogue: it's what the customer will see.
- Your customers need an email address and, if they have special prices, their assigned price list.
Switch on the portal
Go to Extensions, find the Customer portal card and click Enable for free. This is done by the account administrator. If you already have customers with an email address, in Sales › Customers you'll also see the notice “Let your customers place their own orders” with the Activate the portal button.
Once it's switched on, the Portal column appears in the customer list, along with the Sales › Customer messages menu.
Invite your customers
| Name | 3Portal | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Panadería Sol | pedidos@panaderiasol.es | 1Invite |
| ✓ | Hotel Mirador | compras@hotelmirador.es | Invited |
| Restaurante Lonja | cocina@lonja.es | Not signed in yet | |
| Cafetería El Puerto | pedidos@elpuerto.es | Portal active |
- 1Invite: one by one, choosing the store they will order from.
- 2Invite to the portal: tick several customers and send them the invitation in one go.
- 3Status: Invited (email sent), Not signed in yet (opened the invitation but didn't set a password) and Portal active.
One by one
In the Portal column click Invite. If you have several stores, choose the Store they will order from: it decides which products and prices they see. The customer receives an email to create their password.
Several at once
Tick the customers and click Invite to the portal. When it finishes you'll see how many invitations were sent and how many customers were not invited (for example, because they have no email address or were already invited).
If it doesn't arrive
With Copy invitation link you send it by WhatsApp. If your customer already uses Recipok, give them the code with Copy the connection code: they enter it in Purchasing › Connected suppliers › Connect to a supplier.
What your customer sees
- Home: Place an order, the button to repeat their last order (“Repeat the one from…”), My next orders and their Drafts.
- My orders: their history, with the option to repeat any of them.
- Messages: the chat with you.
Every order they place also reaches them by email. They can also view the dispatches you mark with Send to client portal.
Portal orders
They arrive in Sales › Orders like any other order, with the store they came from, and follow the same path: production, delivery and dispatch. Each order's menu has Write to the customer.
Customer messages
In Sales › Customer messages you have one conversation per customer. When the message is about an order, it carries the order reference. Photos can be attached (up to five per message), useful for a delivery issue.
A chat with no replies is worse than no chat at all. If a customer has gone two hours without a reply, Recipok alerts you, and every morning you get a summary of what is still pending. In the order list, the Unanswered label marks orders with unanswered messages.
Change stores or remove a customer
- Portal stores: change which stores the customer can order from. If you remove all of them, they can't place orders.
- Remove from portal: they can no longer log in. The customer, their orders and their history are kept and you can invite them again. If you delete the customer, their access is closed as well.
Tips
- Start with a trusted customer: go through the catalogue and prices they see with them. What the customer sees is your store; if the store isn't set up properly, neither is the portal.
- Tell your customers what time you close orders for the next day: the portal doesn't set opening hours for you.