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I'm working on a project where we are building out a new business bill pay portal in addition to our existing residential portal. The bill pay portals have a similar set up, but they differ and color and features available. Obviously, the business portal is newer and less of our customers know about this portal.

One important item to note: customers can use the same username to log in to both portals (residential and business). With this in mind, I was thinking of creating an interim page to inform customers who accidentally land in the business portal to inform them they are continuing to this site.

I'm thinking the page would be formatted in this way: -Header: With this portal you can... -Bullets: Three distinct features -CTA Button: Continue to Business Portal>> -Smaller link: Return to Residential Portal>>

Of course, I have left the wording rather vague for purposes of this post.

This is a lengthy project with extensive history that I cannot cover in this post, but I'm wondering if this interim page (or possibly an overlay/modal) will be a good customer experience in order to avoid customers who accidentally enter this portal. We want to avoid customers linking residential accounts to this business portal.

I'd appreciate any help, thanks!

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  • If customers can use the same username on both portals, what would a residential customer see if they happen to use the business portal? Will they reach their account? Or will it say access denied?
    – Nathan Rabe
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 13:58

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Many companies that have separate portals for individuals and businesses have a combination of those features on their website:

  • The word "Business" or "Enterprise" next to the logo or company name in the header
    • Makes it easy for the user to quickly identify on which portal he is
  • A drop-down menu, tabs, button or a link to go to the other portal in the header
    • Makes it easy for the user to switch between the two if he was on the wrong portal
  • The word "Business" or "Enterprise" in the page title
    • Not that useful but still a nice thing, especially when a user bookmarks your page
  • Often more wordy presentations, with an emphasis on the business side of the service
    • Of course, depends on what you have to say on your website, but as a user I'll see immediately that I'm on the wrong/right portal

I would recommend against having an additional page: it would slow down and decrease the quality of the user experience on your website by forcing the user to take additional actions when it's not really needed.

Just be sure to provide an obvious indication in the header of which portal they are on (I personally like writing Business next to the logo) and provide an easy access to the alternative portal.

Here is a really quick mockup I did in 5min to demonstrate some features you can implement. Quick mockup of a Business website with a link for individuals portal

Real life examples:

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