Self-Service Portal for Publishers

The self-service portal software allows customer support reps to problem-solve and upsell, giving customers the assistance they want

Customers want personal attention, and they want their problems solved. Our self-service solution frees customers to manage their own subscriptions on a self-service basis through an intuitive interface. Where they require assistance, it allows customer support reps to step into the customer’s shoes and solve their problems directly, while giving them a level of service that makes them feel valued and offering the business opportunities to upsell and cross-sell.

Supporting publishers

Our client is a multinational media brand servicing some of the largest names in publishing in the United States and worldwide. The self-service software system we created was bundled by the client and sold on as part of their services, including integrating it with other offerings.

What does it do?

The self-service software we created gives companies the power to offer:

Self-service

Subscribers can manage their own subscriptions, including upgrading, downgrading and arranging payments

Support teams

Support teams can access the system as if they were the customer, so they can fix customer issues directly on request.

200+ companies

More than 200 companies working on a subscription model

1.1 million subscribers

The subscription management software helps to manage more than 1.1 million new subscribers per year

Business challenges

The publishing business faces difficulties converting visitors into customers, and managing subscriptions once customers do sign up. Traditional structures no longer work now that customers are familiar with more control and faster reaction times; to meet these new expectations publishers need new tools. The space faces challenges including:

User identity tracking

Identifying the same user across devices and sessions presents compliance and technical challenges, but it is vital to generate accurate data that can form the basis of marketing and content commissioning decisions.

Subscription management

Users want to manage their subscriptions themselves, and bring their digital expectations to the process, expecting to be able to modify their purchase rapidly and easily through an online portal.

Customer support and sales

Where digital tools are unavailable or not integrated, customer services and sales alike struggle to leverage them and customers are left underserved and dissatisfied.

Payments management

Traditionally, publishers left payments to banks or credit card companies. Moving payment processing into a combined product is challenging, but users expect it.

Publishers need a tool that lets customers lead the interaction and leverage self-service (e.g. upgrade, downgrade, or pause their subscription autonomously), but still allows the brand to differentiate itself by superior service, as well as providing opportunities to upsell and cross-sell bundled subscriptions, provide previous editions, and more — whether that process is facilitated by customer service or by the portal itself.

Building a self-service portal

We created a self-service portal that addresses the key challenges faced by publishers, empowering customers to manage their own subscriptions and handing publishers the ability to offer effective support and analyse customer service employee performance.

Key issues publishers face

The self-service portal Lightpoint created solved the key problems publishers face in their relationships with their customers, including:

Customer service accounts access

The platform puts subscriber information in front of call center staff and lets them act on, update and alter the subscriber’s account as if they were the subscriber, by request from customers and with auditable security.

Employee performance analysis

Employee performance is recorded and can be audited and analysed, improving departmental and organizational performance and driving increases in customer satisfaction and subscriber retention.

Multi-tenancy, OS-agnostic tool

Different clients with different business logic are supported, with a multi-tenancy system in which backend and front end form a single version of the system.

Configure without reload

The algorithms that underpin the system can be configured while the application runs, without the need to reload, maintaining uptime, improving efficiency and improving customer satisfaction.

Single and social sign-on

Single sign-on and social media sign-ins maximize convenience and encourage portal use, as well as improving security by reducing attack surface.

User-led subscriptions

The system allows users to start, manage, renew and upgrade their own subscriptions, while allowing seamless access to support services when required.

Key features of the self-service portal include:

User identity management
Single sign on and social media login
Fully customizable appearance and functionality of a user-friendly portal
Easy, user-led upgrade, renewal, and management of their subscriptions
Streamlined, convenient payment process
Permit redelivery requests for subscriptions
Retail previous editions
Multi-tenancy, OS-agnostic tool
Customer service accounts access
Employee performance analysis
Configuration without reload

Lightpoint built the self-service portal with:

3 Front-end developers, 2 Back-end .NET developers, 1 Automation QA engineer, 1 manual QA engineer

Tech stack:

Results

The self-service portal was delivered to the client ready to use, and with APIs making the process of integration easy. The client offers this tool to some of the most successful publishers in the United States and worldwide, as part of a unified toolkit to address publishers’ needs in the digital economy.