I Built a Customer Portal Before the Customer Asked for One

#ai #webdev #programming

The customer was still sending us information through email. Every update meant another thread, another attachment, another person copying something into our internal system. During a call, I mentioned that we could probably make the process easier. They said, “Honestly, email is fine.” I wasn't convinced. So I built a small portal prototype in Greta anyway. It wasn't meant to replace anything yet. I just wanted to see what the process could look like. When I showed it to them, they were quiet for a second. Then they asked, “Could our customers use this too?” That wasn't the question I'd expected. We had started by trying to remove one annoying email exchange and ended up talking about an entirely different customer experience. The portal wasn't the product. It was just a way of making the conversation more specific.