We’ve recently seen many an argument over whether there should or shouldn’t be partner portals.
Some people are saying they are dead
Others are saying they are going no where
We’ve got channel tech vendors that are pushing the partner portal piece to one side and other vendors that are pushing their partner portals upon the masses.
What is the answer?
When we started Channelyze, we did so on the knowledge that partners don’t want to go from vendors website to vendors website to work with their vendors. We’ve been in the position before where we are working with 20+ vendors and the point is that we would never navigate to a vendors website unless we had something to specifically go there for.
It’s quite an exercise to be logging into portals on vendors websites every single day unless they are the number one vendor of a partner and that partner’s business is built on that one vendor.
The bottom of the pile
When a new partnership is formed, there is activity in the portal from the partner. They have a look around, they might do a few training’s, they may download some assets but if no business is conducted in the first few weeks / months of the relationship, the partner never logs in again. The relationship falls to the bottom of the pile and it becomes just another secondary vendor to their already existing stack.
The single pane of glass is the way to fix this. Having all of the vendors in front of the partner at all times when they log into a portal cures the problem of vendors falling to the bottom of the pile.
This doesn’t help the bigger vendors who want to have the single portal for their partners though.
So how do you fix the problem of both parties?
Giving the choice
We’ve figured that the solution isn’t black and white. The single pane of glass benefits the smaller vendors who end up falling to the bottom of the pile but having the choice gives a benefit to every single party in the chain.
With the single pane of glass option and a single login to manage all vendors already in place, we’ve gone and added a choice to the vendors and channel partners where they login and work with the vendor.
From this week, we’ve given the ability for the vendors to create partner login pages and partner portals that are dedicated to just themselves.
This works alongside our single login for partners to work with all vendors in their reach.
The partner capture page
Provided by Channelyze to embed directly into your website, it’s there to capture partner applications as well as provide a means for the partner logging into the system via your website.
The partner portal
The way to edit the layout of what your partners see when they login via your website.
The partner locator
A website embedded tool to show the partners that you want to show on your website.
The single pane of glass
In addition to the traditional, we still do what we have always done by providing that single login for partners to work with all vendors.
To give your partners the choice of whether they want to come to your website or not to use your portal, register for a demo at https://channelyze.io/request-live-demo.html
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