Four Tips for Deploying a World-Class Customer Support Web Portal

A good customer support web portal provides the ability for customers to download documents, search content, and submit issues. But a great customer support web portal can do even more. PhaseWare’s Self Service Center (SSC) falls in the great category because it provides not only the basics, but also the extra features like forums, Live Chat, special incident deflection, auto knowledgebase search functions, and various other helpful features. 

With SSC, you can be assured that you’re providing your customers with a great customer experience.  Using the following tips, you can take a great experience and make it outstanding! The following tips will vault your customer support web portal to the highest level of user experience excellence.

 

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Tip One: Plan for always-up availability

If you’re hosting SSC from your own server, make sure you’ve taken measures to ensure redundancy if the server goes down. If a customer wants to know the status of an issue at 2am and really isn’t in the mood for a conversation, you want to make sure he has a way to check the status. Similarly, you should also make sure the server can scale as needed and handle the traffic load. 

One way to avoid this issue is to consider a hosted solution. Granted, the hosting provider must work out the same issues with availability and scalability, but your IT department doesn’t have to deal with it. You can be sure your hosting provider has taken every step necessary to ensure the availability of your support web portal. After all, their reputation is on the line, too.

 

Tip Two: Plan for maintaining the knowledgebase

Obviously your customer support web portal should include documentation for the life cycle of a product so that it is available for customers on earlier releases. But make sure you always update the knowledgebase with the newest release notes, user and admin guides, and known issues for the most current releases. Assigning responsibility for making sure the knowledgebase is kept up-to-date is one way to make sure your customers can find the answers they need. 

 

Tip Three: Keep it interactive

PhaseWare’s SSC allows for two-way communication between the company and customers. Giving customers the ability to use Live Chat, post questions and answers in forums, subscribe to the subjects that are most relevant to them, and open and monitor service tickets enriches the content of your customer support web portal and provides a better user experience for the customer. It’s a smart idea, prior to launching the portal, to assign a person or persons to monitor and contribute to the forums, and to ensure Live Chat is always efficiently staffed.

 

Tip Four: Customize the experience

When customers visit your support portal, you want to give them a seamless experience so they never feel as if they’re dealing with an unknown company. PhaseWare lets you easily brand your portal with customized icon packs and brand-appropriate colors. Take the little bit of time ahead of deployment to give your SSC a custom look and feel.

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PhaseWare: Your Partner for Greatness

A great customer support web portal like SCC, combined with your good planning, ensures your customers can enjoy world-class customer support any time, day or night, every day of the year. 

 

Let us show you how the feature-rich SSC can help your support organization stand head and shoulders above the competition. Request a demo today. (CTA)

 

 

 

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