Building A Customer Portal - (part 3) Integrating with ELMS

The primary goal of ELMS Advantage Online is to provide a fully integrated software tool that supports all facets of the remodeling business.  One single integrated online solution available anytime, and anywhere.

There are many software tools that meet one or some of the different needs of the remodeling business process.  There is no one tool that meets them all while being affordable for small, medium, and large firms.  Remodeling firms struggle with integration, multiple vendors, ease of use, and the cost of implementation.   ELMS looks to solve this problem.

Customer Portal is a website built for customers, but it is the remodeling firm that will realize all the advantages.    Communication between project staff, customers, and suppliers will become more effective.  The number of project delays will be reduced.  Problems stemming from change orders or selection tasks will be less and the ultimate result will be a satisfied customer.  Satisfied customers mean more referrals, more testimonials, and more sales.

Remodeling companies will not require additional tools or software to administer their projects and/or customers in Customer Portal.   All the information needed for Customer Portal already exists in ELMS Advantage Online.  You can use the same tool that you currently use to manage your sales leads, manage your jobs, and create estimates.

An integrated solution will be most beneficial to the remodeling company.   Implementing Customer Portal happens with minimal effort and minimal cost.  Small updates to existing ELMS Advantage screens allow users to quickly adopt Customer Portal into their existing business processes.  Remodeling companies will continue to save administration time because users are not switching between multiple applications or inputting the same data in multiple places.  This is time better spent selling or supporting production.

Document Writer

ELMS Advantage has delivered an interim release (March 30) with the primary objective of supporting the upcoming Customer Portal.   Consequently, completed functionality, waiting for release was deployed during the interim updates.

ELMS users can now take advantage of the Document Writer to create both letter templates and Contracts.  Users can create and update their own contract agreements.  The contract tab on the job folder will support the selection from multiple contracts.  The Document Writer replaces the Letter Templates in the Administration section.  All User's Guides will be updated as part of the normal April release.

Users will also start to notice supporting pages for the Customer Portal.   Communicating effectively with your customers will increase customer satisfaction and result in better referrals, testimonials, and more customers.

Building A Customer Portal - (part 2) The Marketplace

The driving factor behind any decision with regard to adding new functionality to ELMS is always our customers.  The decision to build the ELMS Customer Portal is no exception.  Our customers and many business owners running small and medium remodeling firms are telling me that  there is a growing demand for collaboration between the remodeling company and their customers.  Fortunately, technology is providing multiple avenues to make this happen.

Enhanced collaboration between the remodeling company and the customer goes a long way to ensure that the project at hand continues to run smoothly and on time.  The remodeling company will ultimately become accountable to the customer and the customer satisfaction will improve.  Customer satisfaction is key in an industry where customer referrals and word-of-mouth are your main sources of advertising.

Some companies have implemented their own online tools for collaborating with customers.  There are general  products available that provide partial solutions, but are difficult to integrate with existing systems or exceed the budget for many firms.

The goal for ELMS is to create an online customer collaboration tool that is fully integrated with ELMS Advantage Online and is affordable for the small and medium size remodeling firm.  I can only be assured that the ELMS Customer Portal will be success if, and only if,  you and your company is successful.

Building a Customer Portal - (part 1) An Introduction

This blog post is the first in a series of posts called "Building a Customer Portal".  ELMS Software recently announced to our customers that ELMS Software is in the process of developing the "ELMS Customer Portal".  The Customer Portal will be fully integrated with ELMS Advantage Online and will allow your customers to log into their personal project website.  Customers will be able to communicate with the project staff, view project files & pictures, approve change orders, approve selection, and more...

"Building a Customer Portal" will take an in depth look at our progress, the decisions we make, and how we are integrating with ELMS Advantage Online.   Everyone is free to follow our work both here and in our Open Development Environment.   We will deploy periodic updates to the Customer Portal working prototype as the development progresses.     Come along and watch as a new product is being designed , developed, tested and moved to the marketplace.