Customer portal [open beta]

Use Front’s customer portal so visitors can log in to submit new requests and check the status of existing ones. Set up a customer-facing portal so your customers can self-serve simple tasks, allowing your team to focus on answering more complex inquiries.

After a Front admin sets up a customer portal, visitors can review and submit requests to your company all in one place.

When your team responds to a visitor’s request they’ll receive an email notification. Visitors will be directed to the portal where they can reply to the conversation.

When a visitor submits a request using the portal, you’ll receive a new conversation in your customer portal inbox.

Visitors will see your sent messages and the status of the conversation in the portal. 

• Open/Waiting/Snoozed conversations will display in the portal as 🔵 In progress

• Archived/Resolved/Spam conversations will display in the portal as 🟢 Resolved 

Agents can also create a customer portal conversation from a message. Click the three-dot menu, then select Create a portal conversation.

A pop-up will appear. Review the prefilled details pulled from the message, adjust any fields as needed, then click Create portal conversation.

This will create a new linked conversation in your customer portal inbox, and is now visible to your visitor in the customer portal.

To set up a customer portal, you must have the following:

• A Front Knowledge Base (external visibility and published)

• An email channel connected to a shared inbox (if you want customers to receive email updates)

• Have Front company admin or Knowledge Base admin permissions

Step 1

Click the gear icon on the top right of Front and into the Company settings tab.

Step 2

Click Channels in the left menu, then click the Connect a channel button.

Step 3

Select Customer Portal from the channels menu.

Step 4

Give your new channel a name and select the inbox that should receive requests. Click Continue.

Step 5

Use the toggles to customize the following portal settings:

• Allow visitors to submit requests: Toggle on if you want visitors to submit requests directly within the portal.

• Allow customers to receive email updates: Toggle on if you want visitors to receive email updates when their request has been updated. Select the email channel used to send email updates.

• Show ticket IDs to customers: Toggle on if you want visitors to see the ticket ID associated with their portal request.

• Show consent banner in the portal conversation: Toggle on if you want customers to see a consent banner in your portal.

Step 6

Click Continue to finish.

Step 1

Click the Knowledge Base book icon in the top navigation bar. If you have more than one knowledge base, use the dropdown to select the knowledge base you’d like to use with your customer portal.

Step 2

Select Settings in the sidebar, then click the Customer portal tab.

Step 3

Toggle on the Customer portal setting, then select the workspace you want to route requests to.

In the Customer portal channel setting, create a new customer portal channel or select an existing one. In this example, we’ll select the channel we created in Part 1 of the instructions.

Step 4

Click Save. Your customer portal is now accessible in the My requests section of your knowledge base.

Step 5 (optional)

Click Go to channel settings at any time to adjust your portal settings.

Step 1

Navigate to the company’s knowledge base, then click My requests at the top.

Step 2

To access the portal for the first time, provide an email address then click Send verification email.

Step 3

Click Verify email address in the automated email.

Step 4

You’ll be navigated to the portal where you can submit new requests, or check on existing ones.

Only conversations from portal channels display in the customer portal. However, agents can convert a conversation from any channel type to a portal conversation, as long as there is an email address associated with the customer.

For example, if a customer writes in via chat/SMS it will display in the portal if:

• The agent converts that message into a portal conversation

• The agent fills in the customer's email on their contact record

You can set up one customer portal per knowledge base.

The conversation is moved to the Trash tab in Front, and will no longer be displayed in the portal. A Front agent can restore the conversation if needed.

Not at this time. Visitors will only be able to see requests they personally submitted, or that an agent submitted on their behalf.

This feature is available on the latest Growth plan or above.