Have you ever wanted to build and use a self-service portal for your Help Desk but didn't know where to start? This quick tips infographic will help anyone in the IT service management industry design and build a better self-service portal to better serve their customers.

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Cultivate good
customer behaviours
·Start simple and mature slowly
·Create a path of least resistance
·Train and educate customers
·Be open to feedback and ideas
10 Tips for Designing
a Self Service Portal
By: Mike Kyffin, Manager, PSO & Learning Services, Cherwell Software™
Understand
your goals
·Why are you implementing a
self-service portal?
·What are you aiming to achieve?
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Make it easy to use
·Enable customer confidence
·Enable customer assurance (You want
your customers to keep coming back)
·Enable self-empowerment (self-help)
·Provide a visual selection of services
and products (Don’t just provide a list)
·Think like a customer when designing
the user experience
Understand the
customer perspective
·What do your customers want to do
when they visit the portal?
·What do you want your customers to
do when they visit the portal?
·Keep in mind ‘eye tracking’ (Where
your eye naturally looks on a webpage)
Provide clear and
readable content
·Don’t use tech/IT jargon
·Use images, bullet points, videos,
diagrams, etc.
·Have a clear vision of what the
portal content should be
Offer multi-channel help
Provide multiple ways for your
customers to get the help they need:
·Email
·Self-help
·Phone
·Chat
·Community
·Twitter®/RSS Feed
Gather
customer feedback
·Portal design is a journey
·Conduct customer surveys
·Conduct one-on-one interviews –
ask the “why” and “why not” questions
·Run workshops to explain what you're
trying to achieve
Measure its performance
·What are the most popular knowledge
articles?
·What percentage of your customers
use the portal?
·How are your customers using the portal?
·Gain metrics and web analytics
information
Deliver a
personal experience
·Enable customers to register for the
information they want
Make it accessible
·Provide multi-browser support
·Provide multi-device support
·Use clear icons, text and fonts
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