R3 — Three-trigger test: only proceed with a portal when interactions are FREQUENT + DOCUMENT/APPROVAL-HEAVY + the deflected back-and-forth is REAL AND MEASURABLE

Rule: Recommend a portal ONLY when all three triggers are present:

1. Frequent interactions — the client and the business communicate regularly enough that login becomes habit.
2. Document- or approval-heavy — there is genuine "things to look at, things to sign" volume.
3. Real, measurable back-and-forth to deflect — repetitive "where's my X / what's the status" volume the SMB can quantify in its inbox.

If any trigger is missing, recommend improving email/text workflows instead.

Why: Hit all three (busy bookkeeping practice at tax time, property manager fielding maintenance, law firm collecting signatures and IDs) and a bought portal pays for itself. Miss them and the portal becomes a ghost login (Practitioner data: "Most firms find 40-60% of clients haven't logged in in the last 90 days" — the ghost-login problem stated by an adoption-tool vendor) plus a privacy obligation (PIPEDA core duties: meaningful consent, safeguards appropriate to sensitivity, data minimization, accountability (designated privacy officer), access/correction rights, PIPEDA mandatory breach reporting (in force Nov 1, 2018): report RROSH breaches to OPC + notify affected individuals + KEEP RECORDS OF ALL BREACHES for 24 months) the SMB didn't need. Vendor "deflection" data (Forrester TEI studies report ~35% support-ticket deflection from portals — but every TEI study is commissioned and paid for by the vendor whose product is studied; enterprise-scale) is enterprise-scale and requires there to BE a deflectable volume.

How to apply:

• Walk through the three triggers explicitly in scoping conversations.
• For trigger #3, ask the client to count repetitive inbox messages over a 2-week sample. If they can't name a count, there is no deflection to capture.
• For trigger #1, look at how the client currently communicates with their clients — email, text, in-person? Portals replacing email work; portals replacing in-person service rarely do.