“Building a Web Self-Service
Portal:
Keys to Success”*
By
Paul M. Dooley
Optimal Connections LLC
www.optimalconnections.com
HDI World Conference
March 9-12, 2008
Also an HDI
“Focus Book”
Agenda
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The Trend today: Customer Empowerment
What’s in It for You and the Customer?
Popular Portal Applications
Key Steps in Implementing Your Webbased Portal
• Keeping it Going for Continued Success
• Q&A
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The Trend Today: Customer
Empowerment
• The trend today is toward globalization, 7 x
24 coverage, and multi-channel support.
Customers are asking for…
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Choices – to get support how and when they want it
Convenience - the right reporting channel for the issue
Availability - to avoid problems in the first place!
Empowerment - to be informed
Return on Investment - to get the most from their system
People – rather than big media - are taking a big part
themselves in creating and driving media (witness
YouTube and similar web destinations)
Traditional news media are now migrating to an
online format
In fact, any business without a respectable web
site is like a business without business cards –
its just plain expected these days!
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The Web is “power to the people”
• More than ever, its power to the people - with new web trends
such as …
– Wikis – where the people publish the content themselves under the guidance of
a hosting organization
– Blogs – web logs where individuals share their thoughts, opinions and advice via
online journals
– Personal websites – via tools like MySpace, that are forming a new
communications platform for people
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In the IT industry, the trend is for the support centers to function more like a
business, where end-users are treated like “customers” and the emphasis
is on keeping costs to a minimum, while maximizing productivity,
customer and employee satisfaction
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One important way to accomplish this three-fold purpose is to deploy an
effective web self-service portal for customers
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What’s in It
for Customers
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Access support anytime – a web support portal is
available whenever customers need help – 7 x 24.
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Better understanding of the support center – with
easy access to SLAs, policies, and info, expectations are
more accurately set.
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Increased availability of solutions – customers enjoy
increased and faster access to common solutions
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Higher system availability – fast access to solutions
leads to higher uptime and customer satisfaction
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The ability to collaborate with other customers – a
web portal provides the ability to chat with customers
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Ability to influence support services – by submitting
feedback, requests for enhancements
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What’s in It
for the Support Center
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Makes it easy for customers to do business with you
– Access: customer satisfaction driver
– Position as being available 7 x 24
Publish services and set accurate expectations
– Key to satisfaction: accurate expectations
– Service catalogs and SLAs are key
– Communicate your service offerings
Enable customers as “support partners” – let customers access solutions
Make it convenient to submit service requests
– Service requests are planned don’t necessarily demand phone support
– Can be handled more cost-effectively via a portal
Be proactive and avoid problems
– Tell customers about problems before they encounter them!
– Reduces costs, increases customer satisfaction, productivity
Keep Customers Informed
– By handling “How To” questions, status requests, or misc. questions.
Optimal Connections, LLC
What’s in It
for the Support Center
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Collaborate with and enable customers
– Let them take on more of the support challenge – posting enhancements,
sharing tips, submitting solutions, updates
Market your value
– Use the web as a platform to market your value
– Display your mission, publish successes, and promote your value
Create a competitive differentiation
– Set your support center apart. Today its all about ‘standing out’.
Reduce costs
– Through self-service, proactive problem management
– Do more work with the same level of staff and infrastructure.
Improve performance
– By reducing incidents, staff will have increased time for the back log
Improve effectiveness and efficiency
– Reporting status, answering “how to” questions, and processing service
requests can be handled much more effectively
Optimal Connections, LLC
Popular Web Portal Applications
and Sample Portal
• Automated Status Reporting
• Web incident entry/update for customers
• Answer “How to” questions and provide solutions
to simple repetitive problems
• Process routine service requests
• Provide proactive advisories
• Download center for updates
• Fast access to online documentation
• Enable customer collaboration with
chat
• Publish service levels and a service
catalog
• Keep customers informed about
policies
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Automated Status Reporting
• More timely status reporting is an opportunity for improvement in
most support centers
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– By maintaining a ‘user profile’ and integrating it with your SMS, your
portal can keep customers informed about their incident status
– Report by number, location, date, and other criteria.
– Summary information and drill down reporting should be available
Benefits:
– Set expectations more accurately, and keeps customers informed
– Maintains customer satisfaction levels
– Averts incoming calls for status, lowering costs and ensuring higher
productivity
Challenges:
– Analyst writing skills
– Quality incident logs to capture timely & accurate incident status
– Web integration with your SMS to automate the process
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Automated Status Reporting
Easy Access to Status
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Log or Update Incidents
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Customers enter/ update incidents by themselves for lower priority issues
– Higher priority phoned in (guidelines)
Tip: enforce a search of the KB first before allowing entry!
– Otherwise you risk unnecessary incidents (a solution may be available)
– Key: if no solution, then allow electronic incident entry
Route incidents and requests to your normal queues
– Avoiding the need for special monitoring
– Establish metrics for service requests as well as incidents!
Benefits:
– More cost-effective way of handling low priority incidents and requests
– Convenient access and empowerment for customers
– Forms-based entry provides superior formatting, control, over email
Challenges:
– Web integration to SMS
– Metrics, monitoring and reporting for quality assurance
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Log or Update Incidents
Sample Entry Screens
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Provide Answers and Solutions
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Provide fast answers to the top Frequently Asked Questions
Access to simple, re-usable solutions and answer common questions
– Through easy, fast access to an integrated, effective knowledge base
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Benefits:
– Quick answers to common questions, resolve simple repetitive problems
– Empowers customers, lowers costs, raises productivity
Challenges:
– Integration of your KB to your Service Management System and the web
– A well maintained and solution rich Knowledge Centered Support (KCS)
process
– Providing access to only “customer ready” solutions
– Knowledge Monitoring and measuring for quality and effectiveness
– A “top ten” list of FAQs should also be auto-generated from the KB and
posted to the portal.
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Providing Answers and Solutions
Sample Screen
Top
Solutions
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Reset Passwords
• One of the biggest sources of repeat calls
– 30-50% of calls, in fact, indicates a recent study *.
• A significant potential cost saving for many help desks
– Since many end-users could easily reset their own passwords if
equipped.
– Deploy one of the many software solutions through your web portal to
enable customers, freeing your staff for more pressing incidents
• Benefits:
– Empowers customers to resolve these simple service requests faster,
while freeing up your staff for other work.
– Lowers costs and improves staff productivity
• Challenges:
– Integrating password reset tool to your web portal
– Providing for security policy compliance
– Encouraging, educating and training users to use
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* IDC Report
Reset Passwords
Sample 3rd Party Tool Screens
Sample apps:
•P-Sync
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Enter Service Requests
• 7 x 24 support for lower priority service requests
• Reserve valuable phone support time for processing higher
priority unplanned incidents
– Position the web as your “preferred channel” for handing
planned routine service requests.
– Examples: Change requests, requests for upgrades or upgrades, other
non-defect related requests, enhancement requests
• Benefits:
– Conserves valuable analyst phone time for handling incidents
– More cost-effective, automated handling of service requests
– Convenient 7 x 24 hour access for customers
• Challenges:
– Monitoring responsiveness to the channel for efficient service request
processing, so as to meet customer expectations
– Service catalog integration, automated fulfillment on back end
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Deliver Proactive Advisories
• Keep customers informed about known errors and ways
to avoid potential problems through timely “service
advisory” bulletins
– Timely bulletins describe reported known problems, and include
advice on how to avoid the issue
– A component of proactive “Problem Management”
• Benefits:
– Consistent with ITIL Problem Management, this practice helps
customers avoid problems in the first place – ensuring higher
productivity, uptime, and customer satisfaction
– Also lowers support costs by avoiding incidents in the first place
• Challenges:
– Implementation of a supporting Problem Management process
– Standard forms and supporting procedures, automation
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Deliver Proactive Advisories
Optimal Connections, LLC
Popular Web Portal Applications
Provide Routine Updates
• Leverage your web portal to cost-effectively provide
access to popular minor updates and upgrades
– Avoid sending out CDs or DVDs, and reduce costs
– Provide updates or upgrades to software cost-effectively via a
“downloads” center.
• Benefits:
– Reduces cost for the support center, while providing convenient
7 x 24 access to popular updates and upgrades. Relieves the
administrative burden of providing these updates.
• Challenges:
– Only use for low risk updates and upgrades. More complex or
critical software updates may require service and support
assistance to ensure trouble-free installation and configuration.
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Provide Routine Updates
Sample Screen
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Deliver Online Documentation
• Customers want access, and we want them to be informed about
how to use their systems
• Examples:
– Publish your life-cycle support policy. Set customer expectations.
– Your analysts need the customer to refer to a user guide, manual, or
other set of instructions from time to time – why make things difficult?
– Equip customers with HTML and PDF access
– HTML enables search, and PDF provides easy download
• Benefits:
– Speeds incident resolution and lowers cost – no searching for the
right manual! An easy way to ensure the customer always has the
proper manual for the job at hand!
• Challenges:
– Integration with a document management system
– Timely updates to ensure accuracy
Optimal Connections, LLC
Popular Web Portal Applications
Deliver Online Documentation
Optimal Connections, LLC
Popular Web Portal Applications
Enable Customer Collaboration
• Enable interactive, real-time two-way chat with customers
– Extends self-service web portal to assisted service
– Some audiences prefer this method (ie, gaming)
– Can be integrated with Click-to-Talk, making it easy to transition to
phone
• Analysts can handle multiple sessions simultaneously
• Benefits:
– Positions you as more flexible, ‘customer-centric’
– Decreases phone costs, as some incidents transition to chat
– Can boost analyst productivity through multi-tasking,
canned replies
– Helps ensure self-service experience is successful
• Challenges:
– Lacks provision for ‘tone of voice’, handling emotions
– Integrating with a SMS to log, track sessions
– Requires that analysts have typing, multi-tasking skills
Optimal Connections, LLC
LivePerson, Inc 2002
Enable Customer Collaboration
Sample Chat Screen
Sample apps:
•LivePerson
•InstantService
Optimal Connections, LLC
Popular Web Portal Applications
Publish Service Levels
• Negotiating and documenting Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
doesn’t do anyone any good if the contents of those agreements
aren’t communicated to customers and the help desk!
– Customers need to know what to expect, and staff need to know at what
level to deliver depending on the customer
– Provide a link to “Your Service Levels”, informing the customers about
the contents, terms and conditions of their SLA.
• Benefits:
– More effective communications of SLA contents
– Expectations more accurately set and higher customer satisfaction
• Challenges:
– Be sure that any changes to SLAs are reflected in a timely fashion
– Empower Service Level Management to make changes and updates as
needed to reflect agreements and service levels in force
– Integration with a Service Catalog
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Popular Web Portal Applications
Provide a Service Catalog
• Beside SLAs, let customers know about your services!
• Start with basics: listing the various services you provide and
informing customers in business terms.
– Describe services as products
– Include name, description, typical user, features/benefits, availability
• Include other helpful information with your service catalog to help
customers in deciding which services they need.
– Providing pricing information (value)
– Eventually provide links so that once a customer has selected a given
service, they go directly to automated service request entry!
• Benefits: more customer and business centric – making it “easy to
do business” with the support center and IT
• Challenges: planning your catalog; defining and documenting your
“services”; building, deploying, promoting and maintaining the
catalog.
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Provide a Service Catalog
Sample apps:
•newScale
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5 Key Steps
to Implementing Your
Web Portal
Optimal Connections, LLC
Step 1: Develop and Present a
Business Case
• Develop and Present a Sound Business Case - Before you do
anything!
• Why?
– Sets expectations for management on what to expect (and not expect)
– Defines a mission, clear goals and objectives, a time table, and
milestones in the development and deployment of your portal
– Lays out projected costs with a Cost/Benefits Analysis, proposed
investment (people, hardware, software, etc.), a projected Return on
Investment (ROI), an Action Plan and a projected timeframe for roll-out.
– Defines Key Success Factors, so you’ll know when you’ve arrived at
success!
– Simply good business practice – reinforcing the notion that you “run
your support center like a business”
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How to Develop and Present a
Business Case
 1. Complete a situation analysis
 Document the current situation with respect to customer self-service
 Establishes a “baseline” for later evaluation
 2. Define your Goals and Expected Benefits
– Identify and prioritize the key goals for your portal
– Identify the biggest quick “wins” – prioritize these, and implement those
features first to gain early successes in the rollout
• 3. Summarize your proposed solution:
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Provide an overview of the design, features, and functions.
Summarize costs
Project timeline
List assumptions and risks, with contingencies
Spell out goals and benefits
Provide cost justification, with ROI projection
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How to Develop and Present a
Business Case
• 4. Quantify cost savings expected to be realized
– Provide projected estimates of cost savings, based on achieving the
expected goals and realizing the benefits
– Convert each projected benefit – performance improvement or cost
reduction - into a dollar figure. Include a simple table to illustrate your
assumptions and estimates
Example:
Reduce incoming incidents for simple repetitive issues that
customers can resolve themselves. “How to” FAQs, re-usable
customer ready solutions.
50 calls per week, x 52 weeks = 2600 incidents,
2600 incidents x average cost of $12/incident = $31,200
savings/Yr
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How to Develop and Present a
Business Case
• 5. Estimate Portal Development and Deployment Costs.
– Itemize project costs; compare total projected costs to estimate savings
Examples of costs to factor in: Projected support team costs
software costs, hardware costs, annual hosting costs, professional
services, on-going admin and support costs
• 6. Assemble Your Business Case
– Assemble the output and document a logical business case, with
supporting logic and information.
– Include costs, benefits, and savings over time to illustrate ROI
• 7. Moment of Truth: Present Your Case to Management
– Present the compelling business case to management to secure
management commitment, support and funding
– Then launch the project and get going!
Optimal Connections, LLC
Step 2: Lay the Ground Work!
Assemble Your Team & Plan
• Like any other strategic initiative, this one deserves..
– A focused cross-functional team of Subject Matter Experts
– Budget commitment of people, time and resources
– A project lead & well defined project plan
• Incorporate team best-practices
• Engage your Marketing Department
– Don’t ignore your marketing dept!
– Usually responsible for the “image” to the customer and marketplace
– Especially important if you are planning an externally facing portal
• Involve Your Web Team
– A valuable resource for technical support, resources, and on-going
maintenance
– Make them part of your team so you can work together to make the
portal a reality!
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Lay the Ground Work
Ensure Quality Processes
• Provide for Quality in Your Support Center
– For a web self-service portal to be successful, you must have solid
supporting processes in place within your support center
– These must be positioned to effectively support the customer portal
(foundational)
– Otherwise you seriously compromise your success
• Key elements for support within the center include:
– Business style writing skills
– Quality logging of incident and service request (standards, QA
process)
– Support systems that lend themselves to web integration
– The ability to budget supporting resources – tools, people,
technology
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Step 3: Develop Based on
Best Practices
• Align it with Your Organization’s Web Site
– Should have the same “look and feel”
– Your portal is your image – align it with your organization’s web
• Make it FAST!
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Why users are going to your site? Searching for a solution.
Response and resolution time are key customer satisfaction drivers
Beware of fancy features which slow down performance!
Emphasize fast display, fast loading, and fast response
• Integrate it into your systems to minimize manual updates
• To manage, use a web metrics tool to measure and report on:
– Number of page visits, unique visitors, repeat visitors
– Most popular pages, least visited pages
– Knowledge base (if used) visitors; % growth in solutions; % of visits
successful; solution re-use; most popular authors
– Effectiveness of KB and other tools
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Develop Based on
Best Practices
• Keep it Simple and Easy to Use
– Be compatible with the parent site
– Pay attention to easy navigation and usage
– If you can “personalize” it, so much the better 
• Make it Engaging!
– Keep all critical resources 1-3 clicks away
– Like your analysts, your portal should greet the customer!
• Make it Easy to Find via the Search Engines!
– “If you build it, they will come”. Not true.
– Most people arrive at a web sites through a search engine – about
80%; only a small percentage by knowing the URL.
– Make your web support site easy to locate!
– Optimize your site so that search engines rank your site
at the top of the list when someone types a relevant
search phrase
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Step 4: Treat Rollout
Like a Product Launch
• Once you’ve designed, developed and tested your new
web self-service portal, you’re ready for roll-out.
• This is “the moment of truth”, so we suggest managing
your rollout just like any important new product or
service.
– Realize this is “your face” to the customer!
– Done right is can be very effective and successful. Reduced
costs, increased productivity and customer satisfaction.
– Done wrong, and you end up with disappointed customers, and
a difficult recovery (first impressions matter!).
Optimal Connections, LLC
Treat Rollout
Like a Product Launch
• Establish a “Product Manager” and supporting team
• Have a Release Plan
• Rollout it out in Phases
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Internal rollout first
Beta phase (key customers and users)
Early adopters
Full rollout
• Consider “branding” your portal
• Position it properly as an “expansion of services”
• Assess feedback and you go, and communicate
successes early and often!
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Step 5: Keeping it Going
Ensuring Continuing Success!
• This is now one of your key support channels - don’t neglect it!
• Market it on an on-going basis
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Play a recording while customers on are ‘hold’
Promote its use via your analysts (during silent time)
Offer a free online “demo”
Post the URL everywhere!
• Keep it current through automated updates and effective
management
• Report success to your staff, management, and customers
• Assess your ROI against your initial “baseline” and move ahead into
the future!
Optimal Connections, LLC
Go For It: Take it to the Next Level
with Your Web Portal!
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You’ll be more Customer and Business Centric –
making it easier for customers “to do business” with
you
You’ll Lower Costs – by enabling customers to
solve simple issues themselves
You’ll Raise Productivity – helping customers avoid
problems in the first place, resolving simple issues
quicker. Higher uptime results, along with higher productivity.
You’ll Be More Proactive – staff will have more opportunity to engage in
proactive problem management, eliminating the source of problems
You’ll Differentiate Yourself from the Competition – by virtue of the fact
that you offer an effective, proactive means to assist customers.
Optimal Connections, LLC
Resources
• Check out HDI’s Focus book “Building a Web SelfService Portal: Keys to Success”
• Visit ASP’s web site www.asponline.com and download
the standards for “the best web support sites”
• Use HDI’s Knowledge Management ROI calculator as a
guide in developing hard numbers for you business
case. Available at www.thinkhdi.com, manager’s toolkit.
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