Self-service portals
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Summary of Self-service portals
Self-service portals in ServiceNow provide customer-facing websites that enable users to independently find information, submit requests, and track progress without needing agent assistance for routine needs. Four portals are designed for different customer relationship models—two for B2B (Customer Service Portal and Business Portal) and two for B2C (Consumer Service Portal and Consumer Portal). These portals come with built-in structures and navigation, requiring minimal setup, and share the same CRM data model used by agents.
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Key Features
- Case and Request Management: Customers can create, track, and update cases in real time using list and record view pages, reducing the need to contact agents.
- Knowledge Base Integration: Customers access relevant knowledge articles filtered by product entitlement, unified with the service catalog through taxonomy-based navigation and search.
- Service Catalog: Allows customers to browse and select catalog items to automatically create cases without agent intervention, integrated with knowledge browsing.
- Virtual Agent Chat: AI-powered chat handles common requests such as password resets and status updates, avoiding the need for agent involvement.
- Configurable Portal Widgets: Administrators can customize widget behavior, appearance, and content via instance options, simplifying setup and ongoing maintenance.
- Extensibility: Additional capabilities can be added through plugins, which integrate new pages and widgets into the portals.
Benefits
- For Administrators and Partners: Ready-made, tailored portal experiences accelerate deployment and reduce maintenance effort, while built-in capabilities lower routine case volumes from the start.
- For Customers: Provides a consistent, relevant self-service experience that enables quick resolution of issues and easy access to information across devices without agent contact.
Use Cases
- Enterprise Software: Consolidating multiple disparate customer portals into a single, entitlement-aware portal with Virtual Agent resulted in improved self-service resolution, faster first responses, better onboarding, and higher customer satisfaction scores.
- Government: Transitioned from fragmented program-specific support to a unified citizen-centric self-service portal allowing application submission, status tracking, and information access, significantly reducing in-person and phone interactions for routine inquiries.
Self‑service portals are customer-facing websites in ServiceNow that provide an online place for customers to get information and support. They help customers help themselves by finding answers, submitting requests, and tracking progress, without needing to contact an agent for routine needs.
Four portals are available with the CRM products:
- Customer Service Portal: supports B2B customers.
- Business Portal: supports B2B customers.
- Consumer Service Portal: supports B2C customers.
- Consumer Portal: supports B2C customers.
Self-service portal applications
ServiceNow CRM includes four portal applications, each designed for a different customer relationship model. All four are built on the same Service Portal framework and draw on the same CRM data model that agents work with in the
workspace. All portals offer the same self-service and Virtual Agent assistance features.
| Portal | Service model | What it provides |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Service Portal | B2B | Gives business contacts the ability to create and track cases, view sold products and install base items for their account, and access knowledge and the service catalog. |
| Business Portal | B2B (extended) | Extends the Customer Service Portal with a richer default layout, including taxonomy-based navigation, list views, and record detail pages. Installed automatically with the Customer Service Portal from version 24.0.0 onward. |
| Consumer Service Portal | B2C | Provides individual consumers with equivalent self-service capabilities, case creation and tracking, sold product visibility, knowledge access, and service catalog. |
| Consumer Portal | B2C (extended) | Extends the Consumer Service Portal with a richer default layout, including taxonomy-based navigation, list views, and record detail pages. Installed automatically with the Consumer Service Portal from version 24.0.0 onward. |
Self-service portal capabilities
Default portal experiences help organizations provide information and support through a ready-to-use self-service portal with minimal setup. Organizations can tailor the portal to match their branding, navigation, content, and access settings.
All portals include list pages and record view pages for browsing and viewing records. The table describes what each capability provides and how the default portal supports it.
| Capability | What it provides | How the default portal supports it |
|---|---|---|
| Case and request management | Customers can submit requests, track case status in real time, and update open cases without contacting an agent. | Portals include list pages to browse, search, and filter records, and record view pages to see details, related actions, and links. |
| Knowledge base | Customers can search knowledge bases before submitting a case. Bases can be filtered by product entitlement so each customer sees relevant articles. | Portals unify knowledge and catalog browsing into a single, structured experience using taxonomy topics, with search enabling quick access to relevant knowledge articles across the portal. |
| Service catalog | Customers can browse and select catalog items to create a case automatically, without agent review or rerouting. | Portals unify knowledge and catalog browsing into a single, structured experience using taxonomy topics, with search enabling quick access to relevant catalog items across the portal. |
| Virtual Agent chat | AI-assisted conversations handle common requests, such as password resets, status updates, and routine service requests, without agent involvement. | Portals can be configured to include a Virtual Agent chat interface. The chat widget handles common requests without routing to an agent. |
| Configurable portal widgets | Admins can configure widget behavior, appearance, and content using instance options, without custom widget development. | Portals are built from configurable portal widgets. Admins configure each widget using instance options, which reduces setup time. |
| Extend with additional capabilities (using plugins) | Installing the relevant plugins adds the corresponding pages and widgets to the portal. | Portal list pages and record view pages display the experiences enabled by each installed plugin. |
Self-service portal benefits
Self-service portals provide benefits to internal and external users across an organization.
- For administrators and implementation partners: The default portals provide a ready-made experience tailored to your B2B or B2C use case, giving your team a head start rather than building from scratch. You can get to market faster, and because portal pages are built with configurable widgets, making changes and maintaining them over time, is significantly easier. Built‑in capabilities for case tracking, knowledge, catalog requests, and Virtual Agent reduce routine contacts from day one, reducing case volume.
- For customers: When the portal is correctly configured, customers can find the information they need and resolve routine issues without contacting an agent. Whether they are tracking a case, browsing knowledge, or managing their account, customers get a relevant and consistent experience, making it easier for them to get help quickly and on their own terms.
Use cases
- Enterprise software: consolidating multiple customer portals
- A global enterprise software company supporting more than 20,000 customers had accumulated over 40 separate customer portals across its product lines. The implementation team consolidated the entire customer-facing support operation onto a single portal, with knowledge bases configured with product entitlements and Virtual Agent handling the most common request types. The outcome was a measurable shift toward self-service resolution, with improvements in first-response time, customer onboarding time, and CSAT scores.
- Government: citizen self-service for benefit applications
- A state government department used ServiceNow CSM to replace a fragmented support model where citizens encountered separate support structures across multiple programs with no online self-service. Citizens can now submit applications, track status at each stage, and access information relevant to their situation from any device. The result was a shift from a program-centric service model to a citizen-centric one, with self-service replacing the majority of in-person and phone interactions for routine inquiries.