What a branded customer reference portal is
When a prospect asks "can I talk to a customer like us?", the usual answer is an email introduction and a wait. A customer reference portal gives a different answer: a place where the prospect can browse the references you have chosen to share with them, read the stories, watch the videos and request a conversation.
A branded portal is that place presented as yours. It has your address, your colors and your imagery, so it reads as part of your buying experience and not as a third-party tool the prospect has been sent to.
Branding is not decoration here. A prospect who lands on an unfamiliar site late in a deal has to work out whose it is and whether to trust it. A portal that looks like the vendor they have been talking to removes that step.
How the branded portal works in lyynx
Your own subdomain
You choose a custom subdomain in the form yourcompany.lyynx.com. Prospects browse your references at that address.
Theme colors and hero image
Set theme colors to match your brand, or start from a preset and adjust. Add a hero image for the top of the browse page.
Public company profile
Your company has a public profile that introduces who you are. It is the front door. The reference content behind it is not public.
| Portal setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Subdomain | democo.lyynx.com |
| Theme | Preset, with a custom primary color |
| Hero image | Uploaded |
| Public company profile | Published |
| One-pager | Reference | PIN | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rollout story | Sample Logistics (Sam Sample) | On | In 14 days |
| Executive summary | Fictional Foods (Riley Demo) | Off | No expiry |
What prospects can do
Registration is required to see real reference content. You invite prospects, or they request access and you approve it. Access can expire, which suits a deal with an end date.
Once inside, a prospect can:
- Browse by company or by person, and filter the list.
- Save favorites to come back to.
- Request contact with a reference.
- Message the reference through the platform.
- Book a meeting. Advocates share a scheduling link or propose times.
One-pagers
Sometimes a prospect needs a single story to forward to a colleague who will never log in. One-pagers are shareable summaries of a reference, built from templates. You can add a PIN and an expiry date so a shared link does not live forever.
Website widgets
Website widgets embed testimonials and stories on your own site. The same approved content that sits in your library can appear on a product page or a customer page as social proof, without anyone copying and pasting quotes.
How the portal respects the advocate
A portal makes references easier to reach, so it has to be careful about who is being reached. In lyynx the portal shows only what each advocate has agreed to.
- It is not open to the internet. Prospects register and are invited or approved before they see reference content.
- Each profile follows its own settings. Photo, LinkedIn link, contact details, case study, testimonial and success metrics can each be shown or hidden per contact. See reference privacy controls.
- Contact goes the way the advocate chose. Direct, approved first, or routed to your team.
- Capacity is honored. If an advocate has reached their own engagement limit, new requests go to your team.
- Consent can be withdrawn. A revoked reference leaves the portal until it is approved again.
The practical effect is that you can hand a prospect the portal address without checking every profile first. The settings do the checking.
Who uses it
- Sales invites prospects at the stage where proof matters and stops brokering every introduction by email.
- Customer marketing owns the look of the portal, the one-pager templates and the widgets on the website.
- Prospects browse on their own time and ask for the conversation they want.
- Advocates get requests through one channel, with scheduling and messaging in the same place.
Practical tips
- Pick the subdomain once. It ends up in emails and proposals. Use your company name, spelled the way prospects type it.
- Check contrast. Choose a primary color that keeps text and buttons easy to read.
- Use a hero image that is about your customers. A generic stock photo tells the prospect nothing.
- Set access to expire for deal-specific invites. When the evaluation ends, so does the access.
- Put a PIN on one-pagers that include results. Send the PIN separately from the link.
- Lead with video where you have it. A short clip at the top of a profile often answers the first question. See video testimonials.
- Decide what is visible before you invite anyone. If you are weighing how open to be, read public vs private customer references.