We got a call from a client at 4.30pm on Thursday afternoon... They were in that panicky time running up to a pitch and wanted to put a whole bunch of collateral into the private ‘client only’ part of their website but the website was not interested. Nobody knew why. It wasn’t one of ours by the way. It had always worked in the past for this kind of thing but now – just at this vital time when our client needed to make the best possible impression on their potential new client – it had decided to purse its lips, fold its arms and refuse to play.
Happily our client had already invested in the Hub – our communications portal product. It had taken our non-technical client only half a day’s training and four weeks effort to get it serving their entire company as a UK staff intranet and was already a great success. “D’you reckon it would be possible to use The Hub?” my client asked.
I love it when people ask that.
Forty five minutes later we had launched their new Client Portal. The client could log in, be recognised, welcomed and driven straight to a private area reserved just for them where they could view videos, download presentations and tender documents, meet the people involved in the pitch, leave comments, chat and be generally impressed. All beautifully secure and partitioned so that the client couldn’t stumble into the staff area and only members of the pitch team could see inside the client’s area. All achieved without any involvement from IT or Procurement.
Let’s hope they win the pitch. With the Hub’s help they’re off to a flying start.