Home Virto Commerce blog Hot It Works: Login on Behalf Capability in B2B eCommerce Platform

Hot It Works: Login on Behalf Capability in B2B eCommerce Platform

If you are an administrator or a support personnel on a Virto Commerce-based web store, you can log in under another user’s credentials. This functionality is called Login on Behalf. You may wish to do this to see what a user sees on the webpage at the same time, to help place an order, and even make a payment on their behalf. All Login on Behalf operations are strictly logged to avoid possible claims from customers.

This post is about a useful Login on Behalf feature in Virto Commerce B2B eCommerce platform administering, which helps to increase the productivity of web store personnel. It also contributes significantly to customer satisfaction and brand loyalty while decreasing the number of abandoned carts.

When a user reports a problem with an order processing operation or a bug found, support staff often need to look at the screen through the eyes of that user. This is especially important in cases where an unpredictable error occurs in the application, since it can be difficult to recreate the error during the support ticket.

Also, this Login on Behalf capability helps to efficiently work in-house on the site. For example, a more experienced admin can help a salesperson with a bulk export of products from an Excel file, as well as perform other operations on the ecommerce site’s web pages.

Admin’s Step-by-Step Instruction for Login on Behalf

Below we’ll proceed with a short how-to manual.

Step 1. Sign-in

Sign-in to the Virto Commerce B2B Portal with Customer Support Account. For example: [email protected].

Note: Role and permission should be created and assigned properly.

Step 2. Select Contacts

Use either full-text search or filter feature to find the customer who needs the help from the admin. For example, let’s say this will be Oleg, the author of this post.

Fig. 1. Enter the customer’s name into the filter line to find the relevant user account.

Click on the customer name to call for the Accounts widget. Select Accounts and click Login on behalf.

Fig.2. Select Accounts

Fig.3. Click Login on behalf

Step 3. Virto Commerce will open a new tab with a storefront.

For security reasons, it requires you to re-enter your customer support login and password.

Step 4. You will login on behalf of the customer into their account.

Fig.4. Re-enter login and password.

Fig.5. Admin can see the screen exactly as the end user sees it.

From now on, you can help the customer find products, add products to their cart, complete their order, etc.

All actions will be assigned to the customer but, for security reasons, all actions will be recorded and labeled as created / modified by Customer Support Account.

Conclusion

Login on behalf of another user with an administrative role in Virto Commerce B2B eCommerce platform allows the end user not to disclose his/her password to the administrator. The idea is to allow an admin or support person to physically log into the ecommerce B2B ecommerce portal as the end user whom they support, so that they can see exactly what the end user is seeing. This will include single sign-on to the back-end systems.