Customer portal
Also known as: client portal, customer dashboard
A web surface where end customers see their own quotes, jobs, invoices, and history without needing to call the office.
A customer portal is a web interface that gives the end customer of a service business a self-serve view into their own activity — open quotes, scheduled jobs, past visits, current invoices, payment history, photos and notes from past work. The customer signs in (or accesses via a magic link, no password required) and sees only their own records.
A customer portal moves common one-off requests off the phone — "can I see what was done last visit?", "can you resend that invoice?", "can you tell me when you're coming?" Done well, it also doubles as a referral surface: a customer who has a clean record of every service ever done for them is meaningfully more likely to recommend the business that maintained it. Done badly, it's another login the customer never uses.