Our 10 commandments of Service Portal design

At AC3, we understand the essential need to create better business outcomes and deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences through the ServiceNow Service Portal - be it via the IT Service Management, HR Service Delivery, or Customer Service Management product lines. If you’re leveraging ServiceNow, you understand the value of a centralised point to engage IT and line of business teams. The value of creating a high-value engagement point is to truly support and enable self-service experiences that support the flow of work through the business.

Because we know this is such an important part of customer success, we have created the 10 commandments of Service Portal design and engagement that we live by.

  1. Analyse first, design second.

Involve customers in the design of your Service Portal from the start to deliver a fit-for-purpose and fit-for-business experience.

  1. Usability is king!

Drive simplicity in design, navigation, accessibility, and information architecture that leads your staff and customers to where they need to go from any device they choose to utilise. If your Service Portal needs a knowledge article or guide to use, you've designed it wrong.

  1. Performance enables productivity

Support the experience of your users, customers and employees with one that does not require them to wait.

  1. Consistent theming

Enable a consistent theme to support the user experience (logos, colour scheme, branding, fonts) that remains consistent through all engagement points on the Service Portal.

  1. Personalise the experience

For Service Portal experiences that service a large customer or employee base, render and personalise content that adds value and relevance to support increased adoption and self-service. Operate from a mindset of the customer to enable 'I get what I want, when I want it' when they access the Service Portal.

  1. Invest in search capability

Invest time in enabling an effective search capability aligned to your content.

  1. Speak the right language

Its important to speak the language the consumers understand. Don’t talk in technical jargon, make it relatable and easy to read.

  1. Invest in high-value engagement points

If you're enabling multi-channel engagement via the Service Portal (service catalogue, virtual agent, knowledge management, access to information), ensure the delivery of these capabilities is done thoroughly to support the flow of work and access to information. Deliver a consumer-grade engagement experience that removes the need to engage via external means (phone/email).

  1. Sustainability of deliverables

Drive sustainability through the use of out-of-the-box features and reusable components that can be leveraged across the Service Portal.

  1. Name it!

Give your Service Portal a name that resonates with your organisation to support a 'One Front Door' approach and mindset to encourage self-service across the organisation. At AC3, ours is called Ask ACE, after our company mascot, ACE!

Could these commandments help you in your next service portal project? Reach out to find out more. We'd love to hear from you!