What is a self-service portal?
A self-service portal is an application that gives users the tools they need to solve a problem or make a request themselves. It is not necessary to log into a personal customer environment, such as a customer portal.
An example of self-service portals is a digital municipal office, where citizens can apply for a passport, extract from the population register or parking permit. Sometimes powered by AI virtual assistants.
What are the benefits of a self-service portal?
A self-service portal is an online environment in which customers can arrange matters with your company themselves. This significantly increases the self-service for your customers and it often results in savings on operational costs. The benefits at a glance:
- Increase ease of use & self-service
- No more queues for your customers
- 24/7 accessibility
- Save operational costs
How does a self-service portal work?
A self-service portal is accessible from all devices (laptop, desktop, tablet, mobile phone) and makes finding a solution easy by giving users access to a knowledge base and/or the documents they need in order to submit and complete a request. You can make self-service portals available to both internal and external users.
“Research shows that most customers like to solve problems with a product or service themselves.”
What is the content of a self-service portal?
Technically speaking, a self-service portal consists of a user interface, data, documents and internal & external links. Everything you would like your customers to take care of online can be incorporated into a self-service portal.
The functional content of a self-service portal is very specific. It all depends on what you want to offer your customers, which back office systems you work with and e.g. which controls you want to integrate. A good inventory of the desired functionality, business logic and available data and systems is essential for this. Our experience shows that a portal delivers the most business value when multiple disciplines are involved. Think of development, sales, operations and finance.
Linking software to API
When creating a self-service portal, linking existing systems and sources of information is an important pillar for success. This requires experience and expertise in linking software (both new and older software). HybrIT can play a key role in this through our many years of experience with complex integration platforms. Read more about API links here.
Building your portal in 7 steps
No-nonsense work on results. That’s what we love. Want to know more about the way we work?
Building your portal in 7 steps
No-nonsense work on results. That’s what we love. Want to know more about the way we work?
Our recent projects
Below are two recent projects. View the projects.
Viscon Group
Service portal has been built that fully automated the quotation & purchase process of spare parts. This provides more self-service for customers, shorter delivery times and significant savings on operational costs.
BouwKennis
Customers can view interactive reports (and purchase them directly) by logging into their own environment within the BouwKennis customer portal. In addition, manual actions by the back office to generate reports are no longer required.
MAN Truck & Bus
A dealer portal for garages with 10+ custom plugins has been built to connect warehouse systems for stock management and order picking. The quotation process is automated and a personalized quotation formatting tool (e.g. discount module) is integrated.