The Customer Portal is easy to use, and at the same time it offers advanced configuration possibilities. It is a solution dedicated to businesses in need of a platform that will allow their customers and employees to report faults, needs, and problems, which are then forwarded to the appropriate support line. The Customer Portal in Jira Service Management is a tool that is being constantly developed by its producer. It is scalable, certified in terms of compliance with ITIL, and above all – easy to use.
Jira Service Management is a comprehensive solution offering various possibilities of applications and numerous advantages. Learn about the most important and most useful features of one of the system elements: Customer Portal.
Design
Let’s start with the design: the administrator is responsible for workflow control and correct process configuration. What is more, they can decide what a Customer Portal user can see. Customizable elements include the main image, colors, header (e.g. welcome text or name), and company logo. These are the most essential elements that will ensure consistency with the company’s brand book and at the same time do not require lengthy configuration.
Important!
By introducing and applying changes to the Customer Portal Home Page, all the remaining Jira Service Management pages are automatically customized according to the chosen color theme.
The appearance and organization of request types is also important. The administrator should carefully plan and describe individual request categories by introducing, for example, a division into general and system requests, as well as into request types: hardware, software and user rights problems. The possibility of adding icons representing particular requests is a great visual aid (there are built-in icons in the app and you can add your own as well).
Self-service, knowledge base
Before implementing the Customer Portal, the company should prepare a knowledge base that will serve the user as a source of answers to their questions. This will help eliminate some requests – if a customer finds instructions and solves the problem independently, they will not send a request to the Helpdesk. Jira Service Management allows you to implement this solution thanks to integration with the Confluence system.
Important! The knowledge base is searched not only from the main panel level – the system directs the user to materials containing the phrase connected with their problem and also at the stage of completing the request form.
SLA
If the user does not find the answer to the problem or does not want to look it up the knowledge base, they create a request, which is consequently forwarded to the appropriate service team. Each team has a limited time to resolve the problem to maintain the company’s customer service standards – this time, i.e. SLA (Service Level Agreement), is considered to be one of the most important features of Jira Service Management. By default, it is configured as the time to the first response and the time to solve the problem. In the case of multiple support lines, it is also possible to introduce OLA (Operational Level Agreement) monitoring to the system, which takes care of various work stages.
Notifications about nearing the SLA deadline prove very useful to administrators. The system allows the user to present statistical data related to SLA through charts and individual statistics concerning service technicians. It allows for creating reports showing how many SLAs have been met, how many have been exceeded, whether the team is fulfilling its duties, and if it is functioning efficiently.
Queuing is another very useful feature created for teams handling requests. It is a filter showing a set of requests based on parameters included in a task (status, topic, location, request number, etc.). The configuration of bookmark and field names depends on the needs of a given company. The SLA is also visible in the “queue”. It is shown in real-time, similarly to current requests (which are also shown in real-time as they appear in the system). Here is an example:
Important!
Detailed status data regarding the workflow of a given request is visible in the administrative panel only. The status data visible to the customer depends on configuration: usually, only basic messages are shown, such as “in progress” or “completed”.
AUTOMATION
Similarly to other Atlassian tools, Jira Service Management allows the user to rely on built-in automation or to add it in the form of additional scripts or plugins. Here are some possibilities the Customer Portal can provide:
- Automatic status change when a comment appears in the request – an important feature if you use the SLA pause option, i.e. when you don’t count the time left to present the solution while you are waiting for the customer to answer an additional question that was sent to them. In such a situation, it is important to stop the SLA and resume it only after receiving the response, after which the SLA calculation is resumed.
- Closing recurring applications – if, for example, 10 users report the same problem, you can link these requests together, and after one of the requests is closed, the system automatically closes all duplicates adding a comment set in the system that informs that the problem has been solved.
- Notification and alerts (*sent in the default language set in the user profile in the system).
- Automatic creation of new clients, e.g. from an e-mail.
Customer Portal for businesses – Jira Service Management:
- Certified according to ITIL.
- Scalable – the system can grow with company needs.
- It can serve an unlimited number of customers.
Business benefits:
- Easier communication with customers.
- Easier organization of service technician tasks.
- Improved workflow.
Find out more about Jira Service Management: IT Service Management for business. Service desk with ITIL certificate.
Need a Customer Portal solution, but don’t know if Jira Service Management will meet your expectations? Want to learn about the system capabilities that will meet your needs? Contact us – we will conduct a business analysis that will allow us to tailor the tools to the needs of your company.