<h2>Self-service for Customer Service Management</h2><br/><div style="overflow-x:auto"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"><head><meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><meta name="copyright" content="(C) Copyright 2025" /><meta name="DC.rights.owner" content="(C) Copyright 2025" /><meta name="generator" content="DITA-OT" /><meta name="DC.type" content="concept" /><meta name="DC.title" content="Self-service for Customer Service Management" /><meta name="abstract" content="With the Customer Service Management application, you can provide service for your customers through self-service portals that are integrated with knowledge articles, community forums, service catalogs, and chatbots." /><meta name="description" content="With the Customer Service Management application, you can provide service for your customers through self-service portals that are integrated with knowledge articles, community forums, service catalogs, and chatbots." /><meta name="DC.creator" content="ServiceNow" /><meta name="DC.date.created" content="2023-02-02" /><meta name="DC.date.modified" content="2025-01-30" /><meta name="mini-toc" content="yes" /><meta name="DC.format" content="XHTML" /><meta name="DC.identifier" content="self-service-options-csm-customers" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../../CSS/commonltr.css" /><title>Self-service for Customer Service Management</title></head><body> <div class="nested0" id="self-service-options-csm-customers"> <h1 class="title topictitle1" id="ariaid-title1">Self-service for <span class="ph">Customer Service Management</span></h1> <div class="body conbody"><p class="shortdesc">With the <span class="ph">Customer Service Management</span> application, you can provide service for your customers through self-service portals that are integrated with knowledge articles, community forums, service catalogs, and chatbots.</p> <div class="section" id="self-service-options-csm-customers__section_vsl_2ch_tvb"><h2 class="title sectiontitle">Customer and consumer self-service portals</h2> <p class="p">By using the <span class="ph">Service Portal</span> application, you can create portals that empower your customers to resolve issues and submit cases and requests for themselves. To help direct customers to the right portal resources, you can also activate the <span class="ph">Virtual Agent</span> application for <span class="ph">Customer Service Management</span>.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="self-service-options-csm-customers__section_lsr_nkg_2mb"><h2 class="title sectiontitle">Portal types</h2> You can configure three types of portals to support your customers and consumers:<ul class="ul" id="self-service-options-csm-customers__ul_mfw_nkg_2mb"><li class="li"><a class="xref" href="../task/use-the-customer-portal.html" title="Search for information about a question or an issue, or request assistance from a customer service agent.">Customer Service Portal</a>: Supports your business-to-business (B2B) customers</li><li class="li"><span class="xref">Business Portal</span>: Supports your business-to-business (B2B) customers and is built using configurable widgets</li><li class="li"><a class="xref" href="use-consumer-service-portal.html" title="The Consumer Service Portal is a web interface that your company can use to provide information and support to consumers.">Consumer Service Portal</a>: Supports your business-to-consumer (B2C) customers</li></ul> <p class="p">Both portals offer the same self-service and <span class="ph">Virtual Agent</span> assistance features.</p> </div> <div class="section" id="self-service-options-csm-customers__section_lzy_rkg_2mb"><h2 class="title sectiontitle">Self-service on portals</h2> <div class="p">You can configure your Customer Service Portal or Consumer Service Portal with the following self-service features:<div class="fig fignone" id="self-service-options-csm-customers__fig_fjc_pdt_jyb"><span class="figcap"><span class="fig--title-label">Figure 1. </span>Self-service portal</span> <img class="image" id="self-service-options-csm-customers__image_mck_pdt_jyb" src="../image/self-service-portal.png" alt="Infographic displaying various options for self-service. For the text description, refer to the column in the Self-service on portals table." /> </div> <dl class="dl"> <dt class="dt dlterm">Service catalog</dt> <dd class="dd">With the <span class="ph">Service Catalog</span> application, you can create service catalogs where customers can request items, such as service and product offerings. You can enable customers to request items from the portal by associating one or more service catalogs with the portal. Customers can also track the status of open requests from the portal. <p class="p">To learn more about Service catalog, see <a class="xref" href="service-catalog-request-integration.html" title="Users with the customer administrator role (sn_customerservice.customer_admin) can associate a portal with a service catalog.">Service catalog integration with the Customer and Consumer Service Portals</a>.</p> </dd> <dt class="dt dlterm">Knowledge base</dt> <dd class="dd">With the <span class="ph">Knowledge Management</span> application, you can create knowledge bases with articles to share information with customers on the portal. Customers can search the knowledge bases for information, such as troubleshooting or task resolutions, to resolve issues and answer questions. <p class="p">To learn more about searching the Knowledge base, see <a class="xref" href="../task/t_SearchTheKnowledgeBase.html" title="Use the customer portal to search the knowledge base or view a list of popular knowledge base articles.">Search the knowledge base</a>.</p> </dd> <dt class="dt dlterm">Community</dt> <dd class="dd">With the <span class="ph">Communities</span> application, you can create forums for agents and customers to connect, engage, and collaborate with each other. On the portal, customers can search for community content that could provide the solutions and answers that they need.<p class="p">To learn more about communities, see <a class="xref" href="../../customer-communities/reference/servicenow-communities.html" title="With the ServiceNow Communities application, connect, engage, and collaborate with your employees, customers, partners, and prospects. Your users get quick responses to their issues by posting questions, reviewing blogs or videos, and searching for previous discussions. It is an essential component of your self-service strategy along with Knowledge Base and Service Catalog.">Communities</a>.</p> </dd> <dt class="dt dlterm">Chat</dt> <dd class="dd"> <p class="p">With the <span class="ph">Virtual Agent</span> platform, you can design and build automated conversations that help your customers get the help that they need.</p> <p class="p">As customers answer questions and select options presented by <span class="ph">Virtual Agent</span>, they’re directed to a self-service resource.</p> <p class="p">If customers want to chat with an agent, <span class="ph">Virtual Agent</span> hands them off to a live agent. To provide this resource, use the <span class="ph">Connect Support</span> feature.</p> <p class="p">To learn more about chat, see <a class="xref" href="c_ChatFeature.html" title="Configure the chat channel with the ServiceNow Connect Support feature. You can also enable Virtual Agent to create or use predefined chatbot topics (conversations) for your users. You can also give users the option of switching to a live agent from a virtual agent.">Configuring the chat channel</a>.</p> </dd> <dt class="dt dlterm">Engagement Messenger</dt> <dd class="dd"> <p class="p">With the <a class="xref" href="engagement-center.html" title="By using the ServiceNow Engagement Messenger application, your customers use self-service to find the information or service that they need from your third-party web applications that are outside of the ServiceNow environment."><span class="ph">Engagement Messenger</span></a>, your customers can easily access the information or services they need from your third-party web applications, even if they’re located outside of the <span class="ph">ServiceNow</span> environment.</p> <p class="p">To learn more about <a class="xref" href="engagement-center.html" title="By using the ServiceNow Engagement Messenger application, your customers use self-service to find the information or service that they need from your third-party web applications that are outside of the ServiceNow environment."><span class="ph">Engagement Messenger</span></a>, see <a class="xref" href="setting-up-engagement-messenger.html" title="Understand the stages involved in setting up Engagement Messenger before you add it to your customer service web portal.">Set up Engagement Messenger</a>.</p> </dd> </dl> </div> <p class="p">To get started with the portals, see <a class="xref" href="../task/configure-csm-service-portals.html" title="Configure the Customer and Consumer Service Portals to provide information and support for your customers.">Configure the Customer and Consumer Service Portals</a> and <span class="xref"></span>.</p> </div> </div> </div> </body></html></div>