Effective deployment of a support portal

With a support portal you offer online service and support to your customers. Your customers can, for example, submit support tickets, find answers to their questions, view documents or make service appointments. In this blog an overview of the benefits of a support portal and what you should pay attention to when deploying a support portal. Plus, the biggest pitfall to avoid.

24/7 digital self-support

With a support portal you offer customers the opportunity to get digital self-support at any time. This immediately contains the three major benefits of a support portal:

  • Open 24/7: customers do not depend on your opening hours, but solve their problems and raise their questions whenever they want to.
  • Digital: no need for customers to travel to the office or store, or to hang on the phone endlessly. They can simply access the support portal on their phone, tablet or PC.
  • Self-support: Customers can find answers to questions themselves, check documentation and read instructions. They don't need you.

"Customers experience better support, while your support costs drop. So, win-win."

What should you pay attention to in the deployment of a support portal?

A few things to take care of when deploying a support portal:

  • Security: the portal must be secure and visitors should not be at any risk of having their login credentials being misused.
  • Manage access: take good care of who has access to the portal, how you provide the login credentials, how users can reset their password, etc.
  • User-friendly: Provide a support portal with a good look & feel that is user-friendly and intuitive.
  • Relevant features and content: the most important thing of course; the features you offer on the support portal and the content you share is decisive for the success of the support portal.
  • User manual: explain clearly how the support portal works in a user manual.

Maintain your personal touch

To provide top quality support, you should consider a support portal as an extra option for customers. They should still be able to reach you by phone and email, and you should help your customers face-to-face. But with the deployment of a support portal you expand the possibilities for customers. They experience better support, while your support costs drop. So, win-win. But a support portal is not personal and therefore should not replace other forms of support. You should not hide behind ticket numbers and response times but should continue to strive to help people as well as possible.