Most helpdesks have a backend and a frontend - an agent-facing side and a customer-facing side. Agents can answer tickets, publish knowledge base articles, and respond to forum posts on the agent side. The customer-facing side is known as the customer portal, and it consists primarily of the:
Community forum for the Knowledge Base
Option to create a ticket and check the status of an existing ticket
Although a helpdesk can function without a customer portal, having one set up can be extremely beneficial to your support team. It ensures that when someone encounters a problem, they can first search your documentation and community discussions for solutions before opening a ticket. Your agents will save time by not having to answer the same questions over and over. In addition, your ticket volume becomes more manageable
A customer portal also enables businesses to provide varying levels of support to their customers. Parts of the knowledge base and Forums may be restricted to paying customers or logged in customers only.
Everything from the customer portal's URL to its layout can be customised so that it appears to be an extension of your website/product.
Some businesses lack the resources to manage a k-base and forum. Others prefer to provide support only via email in order to keep it as personal as possible. Businesses like the two mentioned above can simply disable the customer portal and rely solely on the agent-side helpdesk.
