Define the portal's purpose, keep the interface intuitive, make it feature-rich, and balance it all - security, convenience, and services.

1. Customer Portal Design: 4
Best Practices to
Implement in 2022
Almost every business now knows and uses customer
portals to improve their customer service. But that doesn’t
guarantee customer satisfaction.
Your portal is the face of your customer service. 50 percent
of customers will switch to another brand after one bad
experience. So, you must offer a positive experience with an
appealing, intuitive, and feature-rich customer portal
design.
sales@crmjetty.com

2. If you had a physical retail store, you would ensure that
customers get the best experience possible. The sections
are designed systematically, and the support people are
well-versed with all the products in the store.
You would make it possible that they don’t leave without
purchasing or with a bad experience. Think about your
customer portal the same way. Ensure it serves customers
the way it’s supposed to.
Let’s look at the 4 customer portal design best practices that
will surely help you in 2022.
1. Build with Purpose
Start by thinking about your customers’ requirements and
what service they need – communication, document
sharing, profile management, etc. Think about the features
your portal should consider in order to help them with
self-service. Along with customers, also think about your
support team and how the portal will simplify their work. If
you can’t, think about the questions that your customers
often ask – if it’s about performance, you need to provide
them reports on the dashboard. You can provide a
knowledge base and ticket management if it’s about ticket
generation. For your support team, think about their
sales@crmjetty.com

3. challenges – repetitive queries – add FAQs and case
deflection.
Remember that your portal is effective only when customers
and staff use it. If it serves a purpose, both your customers
and staff will benefit from it.
Tip: If the purpose is instant solution/help, add features like
advanced search and knowledge base to help customers
help themselves.
Challenges to tackle during customer portal design
● Too much data clutter
● Complicated browsing
● Customer relationships
● Optimized portal
2. Focus on UI
First impressions are the most important part of the
customer journey. If the store looks appealing, they are
likely to stay and browse. Hence, start with the look and feel,
i.e., the visuals and graphics, and then proceed towards
functional design and how the portal works.
The visual elements include:
sales@crmjetty.com

4. i. Layout
Provide limited options. According to Hicks law, customers
take more time to decide if you give them multiple options.
Plus, complicated terms confuse them. Hence, use simple
words and names like Contact Us, About Us, Home Page,
and product page. Next, prioritize the look; make the
interface intuitive. Add colors that resemble your brand.
Maintain consistency throughout, deliver a message that
service is your core competency and not just a siloed
operation. While sharing important information, use a bold
color palette.
ii. Accessibility
It should be easy for customers with or without any
disability to find what they are looking for. A search tab
should redirect customers to the required sections –
knowledge base, assets, community support, cases, or other
resources. All the elements and buttons should be placed so
that they are visible and easily accessible. For example, a
search bar on the top – in the center or left/right corner.
Your self-service should be only one click away from your
support center.
Here are some tips to make your portal accessible for
specially-abled customers.
sales@crmjetty.com

5. ● Use contrasting colors
● Add text labels and patterns to deliver content
● Support keyboard navigation
iii. Navigation
Navigation impacts your store performance. Hence, ensure
it’s smooth and professional as it will help you find the
relevant information instantly. Categorize the sections
properly and make the links clickable and proper. Maintain
consistency and focus on the positioning of the elements
like CTAs, menu, header, footer, etc. Ensure that all the links
navigate to proper sections or pages. If a user clicks on the
link to an article, it should navigate to that specific article.
The navigational titles should be clear and appropriate.
Don’t forget to add alt text for all images. If you want to
track customer information, use breadcrumbs. They help
track and retrieve the previous path that customers
followed.
iv. White Space
White/negative space gives breathing space to the reading
elements. It separates the sections and helps
customers/users focus on the specific elements – focus on
sales@crmjetty.com

6. a specific section, miss the content, and click on the
call-to-action.
An apt example of white space is Dropbox’s help center.
Customers have a clear idea of where they can find specific
information. The white spacing and content in between
guides customers to specific sections and articles. This is
self-service in actual terms.
However, white space doesn’t mean a simple break in
between elements. You need to make sure that it’s strategic.
For example, placing a bulk of content in the below section
and forcing customers to scroll is an idea you should avoid.
Don’t let customers scroll left or right. If they have to scroll
right to read information, most of them will simply avoid it.
And your goal to offer self-service will be of no use.
sales@crmjetty.com

7. Your customer portal design interface should focus on
usability. Customers use it on a daily basis, whether it’s
online banking or a retail store. So, make sure it’s appealing
and convenient. Also, it should be impressive enough to
make customers use it often.
Tip: While designing the user interface of the customer portal,
you can create a default layout for all customers or a separate
template layout for specific customers based on their user
groups.
3. Improve User Experience
When designing your customer portal, it’s essential that you
provide your customers with all the necessary information
without overwhelming them with too much or unnecessary
information. So, determine the features and information
that would help your customers. Don’t overwhelm them
with irrelevant features. Here are a few of the features you
must have.
i. Self-Service
Offer a secure login and let customers manage their profiles
and cases themselves. Give them the freedom to raise
tickets and track their status accordingly. Let them find
answers to their questions with a knowledge base and
community support.
sales@crmjetty.com

8. ii. Dashboard
Let your customers view and track all activities from a single
window. Provide all the necessary data, including tickets,
profiles, documents, news feed, etc., on the dashboard.
Allow them to stay informed and sort the data such as ticket
status, purchase history, etc., using advanced filters.
Your portal dashboard should consist of relevant data, quick
links to frequently searched content or tasks, and help
customers resolve queries immediately. It should highlight
urgent/overdue tasks. Avoid adding lengthy welcome
messages or content that you care about, like news.
iii. Onboarding Process
Adding new customers and making them complete a task on
the portal is an accomplishment. However, if even one thing
goes wrong, it can create chaos, forcing customers to
abandon you. Hence, make sure your customer portal design
focuses on seamless onboarding. Add features like single
sign-on to let customers log in to the portal easily. Add
training materials and tutorials to guide them through the
portal. However, make sure that the portal is
customer-centric and straightforward, i.e., they should be
able to use it without/with less help.
sales@crmjetty.com

9. iv. Knowledge Base
Only a few companies provide a knowledge base for their
staff and customers. However, that’s the first stop where
customers stop in their journey to solving queries. So,
provide a knowledge base and ensure that the content is
relevant and up-to-date. Also, it shouldn’t be technical. Your
articles and documentation should be in layman language so
that every portal user can understand them. In addition, you
can also add features like version control to manage the
documents systematically, helping customers find the
required information quickly. Advanced filters and search
options to find information will also help.
Last but not least, optimize SEO. Even if customers Google a
question, they should be redirected to your portal. It will
increase your portal and website reach. Keep doing the gap
analysis to understand the content that customers are
searching, but couldn’t find.
Tip: Offer FAQs so that customers can get answers in a single
click.
v. Ticket Management
Your customer portal design process should involve a
create/update incident feature. This will allow customers to
create a new support request, edit/update the request and
sales@crmjetty.com

10. track its status. The automated workflow should ensure that
a ticket is issued to a relevant support person. There
shouldn’t be any manual allocations and management of
tickets.
You can also add a case deflection feature. Instead of raising
a ticket, customers can first search if a similar query already
exists in the system. If yes, it can prompt them to redirect to
relevant links and find the solution there. This feature would
reduce your service team’s workload and allow them to
focus on priority tasks.
Note: Some businesses use the ticket management custom
integrated by their portal developer, while others integrate
an external solution using the API. So, ask your developer
about it when designing the portal.
vi. Virtual Assistant
Though this is an advanced feature, guided search is taking
up the stage, allowing customers to search products,
categories, queries, etc., based on their past interactions,
purchase history, recommendations, browsing methods, and
so on. This provides a next-level service where customers
get help even before asking for it and in a way they prefer.
A virtual assistant can be an AI-enabled chatbot that asks
customers questions based on its interactions with a similar
sales@crmjetty.com

11. profile. It provides customers answers to basic queries
instantly.
vii. Online Community
Just like an intuitive interface, your customer portal design
process is incomplete without a communication channel.
Since your purpose is to encourage self-service, a
community forum encourages your customers to meet their
peers and share ideas and questions with them. This feature
will help you cut down your operational costs since
customers can help other customers without any help from
the support team.
In fact, this forum will help you understand your customers
better. You can analyze the challenges that they face, the
kind of service they expect and implement strategies to
improve your offerings.
This will increase your brand awareness. So, ask your portal
development partner to integrate a community feature.
Allow sharing documents, images, and videos there. Make
your community forum engaging and interactive like social
media platforms. Integrate multiple communication and
collaboration tools.
Overall, focus on automation. Automating certain tasks and
processes like onboarding, ticket management, and
sales@crmjetty.com

12. document management will make the business operations
efficient and improve customer experience.
4. Balance Customization, Security, and Convenience
Just like the sleek design, customers expect businesses to
provide them with customization options to have control
over the portal. So, offer customization options that let
them customize the portal’s look and feel. It can be related
to styling or enabling/disabling a feature. Offer services that
allow them to share documents and other relevant
information with you.
In the other half, focus on security. Ensure that the freedom
and access you give your customers doesn’t cost you in
terms of data loss, manipulation, or fraud. Follow security
best practices such as complex passwords, two-factor
authentication, session timeout, hiding sensitive
information, etc. Also, add compliance and policies.
With security, ensure that it doesn’t inconvenience
customers. If configurations and secure login become a
hassle, customers won’t likely use the portal. Hence, try to
offer convenience with features like single sign-on and
shortcuts.
sales@crmjetty.com

13. Explain to them the reason behind limited access and the
compliance and security concerns. Add statements like ‘your
data security is our priority.’
Here are some ways to create a balance between
convenience and security.
i. Help Center
A great support center is where customers can easily and
quickly find the help they need. It’s a centralized place
where all your customers come over to resolve their queries.
Hence, brand your help center so that it’s packed with useful
information and consists of intuitive design elements to
attract customers.
Take a look at Asana’s help support page and see how they
have picked and added the right elements – navigational
links, search bar, related articles, and virtual assistant.
sales@crmjetty.com

14. You can also look at GiffGaff’s aesthetically appealing
design. The help center encourages customers to contact
the community for help and reach out to the support team
for a personalized query/service.
ii. Request Types
When designing your customer portal, mention the different
request types and add details to it.
● Create different request types and name them so that
it’s easily understandable.
● Add icons for separate request types for easy
bifurcation.
● Add context for help, like the purpose of the request or
additional information.
● Provide easy links to documents and content if
required.
● Group similar types of requests so that it’s easy to find
relevant information.
iii. Add Shortcuts
Just as Siri shortcuts help remind you about important
meetings and upcoming events, portal shortcuts will help
your customers accomplish specific tasks quickly. For
sales@crmjetty.com

15. example, instead of surfing through the security module to
change the password, they can click on the change
password link on the dashboard and be redirected to the
change password page. So, add shortcuts to navigate to a
specific module or perform a particular action. Allow
keyboard shortcuts and simplify everyone’s life. Also,
consider scroll buttons in your customer portal design.
Make it convenient for your customers to access the portal.
iv. Limit Access
Add a security feature where you can control what your
customers can access and what they can’t. Create user
groups and define certain access rules based on them. For
example, exclusive customers can access premium features.
You can also provide access rights to individual users.
v. Allow Customizations
Let your customers customize their portal’s design. Offer a
drag and drop builder to customize the layout – configure
colors, themes, font, styles, etc. Allow them to filter the
content they would like to read based on their preferences.
For example, if they want to read news only about upcoming
events, let them configure it so that the news feed will only
show the upcoming events and sales news.
sales@crmjetty.com

16. You can also allow them to customize the dashboard to view
the information they need on one page.
Industry Specific Design Examples
Portal is a solution that benefits almost all industries. Here
are a few customer portal design inspirations that you can
employ based on your industry.
Healthcare
Your portal design should focus mainly on the patients. It
should allow your patients to schedule appointments,
contact doctors, view test results, and check their reports
anytime. Here’s a MyChart platform designed by Children’s
Hospital Colorado. The platform makes signing in, sleek.
Users only have to add a few details and request an access
code.
sales@crmjetty.com

17. Source: justcoded
The best part of this customer portal design is that it
provides all the necessary information in one place. Patients
can view their notifications, check the to-do lists, and even
perform certain actions with quick links.
Banking and Insurance
Add features that allow customers to manage private
accounts and monetary transactions from one place. A great
example is the Santander bank website. The platform
consists of various retail features that allow customers to
control their accounts, cards, investments, loans, and access
other information.
Source: Santander Bank
sales@crmjetty.com

18. Insurance industries can take inspiration from CopperPoint,
the largest worker compensation provider. They have a
solution that lets their policyholders and clients collaborate
with self-service features. The platform facilitates payment
procedures, recoveries, negotiations, quotes, alerts, and
more.
Education
Check out the Capella University iGuide and Passport York
for student and faculty portal design. Capella’s iGuide
provides learners with relevant tools and resources to
access courses and learn at their own pace.
Students can register for courses, access them online,
manage their information, and even pay bills therein.
Stanford University’s online solution called AXESS is
developed on user-centric design. It allows students and
faculty to manage all their activities, including enrollments,
classes, courses, and personal information from one place.
You need to make sure that your customer portal design
covers industry-specific requirements and includes features
accordingly.
sales@crmjetty.com

19. What’s the Next Step
Go and talk to a portal development partner. Share your
requirements and make sure that they include everything in
the customer portal design process. Also, take their inputs
on design and development, including the features that
should be included.
Most importantly, ask your customers. Take their feedback
and implement those in your customer portal design. Always
remember that your portal should be designed considering
its users.
Need help with your customer portal design?
Talk to our Experts!
Source:
https:/
/www.crmjetty.com/blog/customer-portal-design-
4-best-practices-to-implement-in-2022/
sales@crmjetty.com