4 customer-friendly ways to customize Jira Service Desk
According to the 2017 report by Customer Contact Week Digital, companies were expected to focus heavily on reducing customer effort in 2018. However, the following year didn’t meet these expectations. A survey conducted a year later revealed that only 18% of customers were satisfied with their support experiences. This highlighted a significant opportunity for improving customer support across various industries. By offering customers an easy way to request help and resolve issues quickly, you have the chance to regain their trust and turn a negative experience into a positive one.
Modern ITSM tools can help achieve this by ensuring both customer and support team satisfaction. For example, Jira Service Management routes Customer Portal requests directly into Jira, allowing support and development teams to work together seamlessly in a single environment, thus improving resolution times. Features like request queues, advanced automation rules, and instant notifications in Jira Service Management help better fulfill SLA services.
However, what customers see when they visit an out-of-the-box portal might not be as helpful as you think. To meet their needs and create positive customer experiences, you need to customize your Jira Service Management Portal. Here are 4 ways to customize the Jira Service Management Customer Portal:
1. Customize Customer Request Types
The Help Center is the first point of contact in the support process. Here, customers see a list of available portals and service types to choose from, which can be overwhelming. Regardless of their query or issue, customers should be able to find the right place to start without having to navigate through the site.
You can set up customer service types under Project settings. To maximize the effectiveness of the search bar, use keywords or phrases that your customers might use to describe their issues. For instance, what you call "asset maintenance" as an IT expert might be a "hardware issue" to your customers. If you're in marketing, consider changing "SEM and GDN campaigns" to "Text and banner ads." You can also create service type groups, set icons for each request type, and edit their descriptions to simplify navigation.
Remember that service types are not the same as request types in Jira. If you want to use a custom request type, you’ll need to configure it in the "Issue Type" settings. The advantage of this setup is that you can assign multiple service types to a single request type. For example, a customer might see "New hardware" and "New software" as separate requests, but they both fall under "IT Help" for the agents.
2. Modify Fields or Add Custom Fields to the Service Form
Default service forms typically include only the Summary, Description, and Attachment fields, which are often insufficient for fully describing a problem, making them less user-friendly. Some users might not be familiar with Jira, so they may not know what to enter in the Summary and Description fields.
To address this, go to the request type section of Project settings and click "Edit Fields" next to a service type. On the following screen, you can add or remove fields from the request form, provide additional instructions and external links as Field help, and specify which fields are required.
You can also hide certain fields or automatically populate them with predefined values. For instance, you might want issues under a specific service type to always be set to high priority, be related to specific Jira components, or be assigned to the same person. Another useful feature is the ability to rename these fields as they appear to the user, while they remain consistent in their original form within the agent’s view in Jira.
To add custom fields, you first need to create them. There are various options like checkboxes, date pickers, drop-down lists, and numeric and text fields. For instance, if you want customers to select a payment method, choose a Radio Button and add options like Cash and Credit Card.
Then, associate your custom field with the correct screen, typically the Jira Service Management screen of the target project. Be sure to scroll down the screen list and click Update; otherwise, your changes won’t be saved.
3. Incorporate Your Company’s Branding
Every customer portal looks the same out of the box, but more and more companies are applying their brand styles across all web properties, including support channels. Jira Service Management’s Portal settings offer several options for customizing the look and feel of your Portal. You can change the homepage heading and Portal name or add your company logo to the header panel. In versions 4.1 and above, you can also customize screen colors and upload a custom banner to the top background. Additionally, you can add announcements to inform customers about changes in working hours or recurring issues being addressed.
4. Link a Knowledge Base
Self-service is one of the most sought-after capabilities in modern ITSM platforms. By connecting Confluence with Jira Service Management, you can write answers to common customer queries/issues. This allows customers to find answers by typing a query into the search bar on the Customer Portal. In most cases, they can resolve their issues without having to submit a request and wait for a representative’s response. This not only saves valuable time for the support team but also benefits both parties.
These basic changes can make a significant difference in your customers' support experience. The use cases for this tool are so diverse that its out-of-the-box functionality often calls for more customization and additional features tailored to your specific setup. This could include displaying external links in the Help Center, implementing dynamic request forms with customer workflow transitions in the request view, customizing the My Requests screen, or even creating an entirely new design for the Customer Portal.