Is Salesforce a portal or a community?
Salesforce is a well-known name in the world of CRMs, portals, and communities. We can’t deny that their products are world-class and provide organizations like yours an upper hand. And sometimes that can raise further questions like which portal to invest in? Should you be going with a portal or a community?
What is Salesforce knowledge and how to use it?
With Salesforce Knowledge content, you can quickly build a knowledge base for your customers with ease. Experienced agents and subject matter experts can write articles, answer FAQs, etc. for common customer issues. The Salesforce Knowledge articles
Does Salesforce help center come with Salesforce essentials?
Salesforce offers multiple ways to deploy self-service features that integrate with your existing website or back-office system. Salesforce Essentials, the out-of-the-box solution for small business, comes with support for Help Center.
What is a partner portal in Salesforce?
Users of the partner portal have limited access to Salesforce and can only see the data of the modules for which they are granted access. With the help of partner relationship management (PRM), companies can create multiple portals to manage, track, and handle their indirect sales.
What is capability of Salesforce Knowledge?
Salesforce Knowledge gives you the ability to build out a comprehensive Knowledge Base (KB) inside of Salesforce to service your internal agents, partners and customers.
What can you do with Salesforce Knowledge?
Give your website visitors, clients, partners, and service agents the ultimate support tool. Create and manage a knowledge base with your company information, and securely share it when and where it's needed.
What is true about Salesforce Knowledge?
Your Salesforce Knowledge base is built from knowledge articles, which are documents of information. Articles can include information on process, like how to reset your product to its defaults, or frequently asked questions, like how much storage your product supports.
What is the difference between Salesforce Knowledge and solutions?
Knowledge allows for article segmentation and categorization with data categories. With Solutions, you can't expose different Knowledge articles to your internal team than you do to your customers. Knowledge search and integration with cases is more advanced and leads to quicker case resolution.
What are the two features of knowledge?
Several characteristics of knowledge have been described:Knowledge is contextual and it can be re-used.Benefits of knowledge obtained only if it is applied.The values of knowledge may change over time.Knowledge has to be renewed or maintained.It can be difficult to transfer, capture and distribute knowledge.More items...
How do you deploy knowledge in Salesforce?
In salesforce setup, Search and open Import article wizard....Choose Production and provide salesforce login credentials.Export articles based on the filter provided by the app.Export in Salesforce Article importer format.Once done, mail will be sent to the exported user. Download from the mail.
Can I use classic knowledge in lightning?
In Classic Knowledge, the URL contains the Knowledge Article ID. You can't use the Public Knowledge Base package (PKB) in Lightning Knowledge. You can share Lightning Knowledge articles in Experience Cloud and Salesforce Sites. Use Help Center to share articles with unauthenticated users.
What license is needed for Salesforce knowledge?
The current licensing for the Knowledge Base requires that Standard SFDC users (Employees) must have a Knowledge User license provisioned to them to even view Knowledge Articles whereas portal users (both partner and customer) do not.
Can you deploy knowledge articles?
To deploy Knowledge article data: The data loader (data deployment) feature in Gearset needs to have been purchased and enabled by your team owner. The Knowledge object metadata type needs to exist on both the source and target. The user running the deployment needs to have permission to access the Knowledge objects.
Is Salesforce knowledge a CMS?
Salesforce Content Management is a hybrid CMS, meaning it has a user-friendly front-end to help marketers create content and extend it to any Salesforce touchpoint – such as a commerce site, marketing email, or experience portal.
What is the purpose of knowledge base?
What is a knowledge base? A knowledge base is a published collection of documentation that includes answers to frequently asked questions, how-to guides, and troubleshooting instructions. It's designed to make it easy for people to find solutions to their problems without having to ask for help.
How do I access Salesforce knowledge?
Enable Salesforce KnowledgeFrom Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Knowledge , and then select Knowledge Settings.Confirm that you understand the impact of enabling Salesforce Knowledge and click Enable Salesforce Knowledge and click OK in the dialog box.To select your general settings, click Edit.More items...
1. Self Service Portals Reduces Customer Service Costs
They don’t call these portals “self-service” for no reason -- if your customer can find an answer to their problem on their own, that reduces the amount of support needed because the volume of tickets will decrease. And there’s not as much of a need to invest in customer service as your company grows.
2. Self Service Portals Improve Agent Productivity
With fewer calls and support tickets, agents and representatives fielding these inquiries can spend more time with each customer that doesn’t use their self-service portal. With more time allotted to each customer, it’s not just about increased productivity, but the ability to provide better care to each customer call or email.
3. Self Service Portals Teach Customers New Skills
Portals expand clients’ knowledge and skills, and give them the tools they require for solving other similar issues in the future. Portals provide detailed information beyond the basics when delivering answers to commonly-asked questions.
4. Self Service Portals Boosts Site Traffic
The customised knowledge base of the self service portal acts as a useful tool for bringing in more website traffic, and marks a business as an information source and authority in its field or industry. As a result, current or potential clients place trust in the company, increasing the company’s credibility and brand visibility.
5. Self Service Portals Leverage Personalised Information
An intuitive self-service portal saves time and helps clients locate the information that they need more quickly by using information from past problems.
What is Salesforce Knowledge Base?
Salesforce Knowledge gives you the ability to build out a comprehensive Knowledge Base ( KB) inside of Salesforce to service your internal agents, partners and customers. A Knowledge Base is simply a collection of articles with relevant information about your products and services, to encourage a self-service model for your customers ...
What is the knowledge lifecycle?
The Knowledge Lifecycle is cyclical and stresses continuous improvements to content. To support the Knowledge Lifecycle, Lightning Knowledge has version control, which is a new feature from the Classic model.
What is Lightning Knowledge?
The Lightning Knowledge data model is very different from the Classic Knowledge data model, so the access is also fairly different . In Lightning Knowledge, all articles are on a single Salesforce object called Knowledge (Knowledge__kav) by default (you can actually rename if you want, not just relabel!)
How are topics different from data categories?
Topics are different from Data Categories in that they don’t drive article access in any way and they are not hierarchical. They are primarily used to organize information within a knowledge base in a community. Topics are assigned to articles in Content Management > Topics in the Salesforce community workspaces.
Can you approve articles in Salesforce?
As with most Salesforce objects, you can create an approval process for articles. This is invaluable for controlling what content is published, especially if you have a public knowledge base and need to screen content for customer-facing articles.
What are the two types of self service portals?
The two most common types of self-service portals are customer self-service and employee self-service. While the content and user experience often vary dramatically between these two types of portals, both may be built using the same technology. The job of any self-service portal is to help users address common needs efficiently ...
How does a service portal help your business?
A service portal can also bolster your web presence by boosting traffic while also creating content suitable for sharing across blogs and social media, giving you a path toward establishing your company as a trusted, authoritative voice in your industry. Previous chapter.
Why use a self service portal?
Why consider a self-service portal? Generally speaking, a self-service portal is a great tool for expediting common service requests while saving time and money. Self-service portals also help free up service employees to take on more complicated issues, or work on innovations to help the company grow. Deploying a self-service portal can also help ...
Can personal information be kept safe?
Personal information can be kept safe in an account page that’s only accessible after the user has logged in. Public information, including knowledge base, FAQ, and how-to content can be made freely available without going through a portal login page.
Why do people use self service portals?
Because all the information they need is in one place, customers who use self-service portals are likely to report higher satisfaction and share their positive experiences online or through word of mouth, which boosts your brand’s reputation.
Why do self service portals have social media?
Many customer self-service portals provide a dedicated social media feed for customer queries so employees can get involved in the process as needed. They take turns communicating solutions or answering questions about the business. The social media feed can also disburse general expertise and product information.
What is customer self service portal?
Customer self-service portals provide detailed answers to commonly-asked questions. They may convey information about products with step-by-step guides, diagrams, and how-to videos. You can also include tips, hints, and other agile practices to help customers understand your products.
Quickly set a up a self-service help center
Free up your agents from handling common questions or requests with a branded self-service help center. Easily embed knowledge articles and provide customers access to important data.
Quickly launch personalized portals and communities when your customers need them most
Build beautifully branded, mobile-responsive portals and communities quickly and easily using Lightning Community Builder. It’s the low-code way to get started with drag-and-drop ease, so you’ll be up and running in no time.
Simplify self-service with step-by-step processes and end-to-end workflows
Empower customers to resolve requests on their own — no agent required — by integrating Salesforce data into your portal and business processes. Want to check an account, pay a bill, or book an appointment? It’s all done in a flash.
Scale support with service embedded directly into your portal
With Service Cloud integration, customers can access an agent via chat or submit a case online. And agents have a 360-degree view of that customer’s activities in the portal. So agents work more efficiently and keep customers happy.
Help customers help themselves, and each other
Make it easy for customers to find answers in the community fast by automatically surfacing the information they need from multiple sources. Give access to groups, experts, and customer MVPs to keep them coming back.
Deliver a personalized customer experience using automation and chatbots
Give your customers answers in real time. With Einstein, you can fine-tune content based on customer profiles, interests, and activities by highlighting relevant articles, answers, and experts. Plus collect case details and handle FAQs on chat before transferring to an agent.
Self-Service Portal and Customer Communities by Service Cloud
Give your customers the self-service portals, discussion forums, and access to the answers they need quickly, anytime, and from their laptop, tablet, or mobile device. Empower your customers with Communities by Service Cloud.
How to help customers get exactly what they need?
Help your customers get exactly what they need using a centralized knowledge base for all your agent and customer information. Use analytics to identify which knowledge articles are working, and to identify new articles that need to be created.
How to encourage customer self service?
Encourage customer self-service by embedding knowledge articles right into your website, portal, community, and native mobile app. Instantly answer customer questions by using chat bots — powered by artificial intelligence — to recommend articles.
How do customer portals help?
Customer portals help your customers solve problems more effectively by letting you create online forums, various group learning, informative articles, and more. This provides them a much needed 24/7 customer support without you having to spend extra resources and also eliminates the drawbacks of having customers in multiple time zones.
How many people use the internet via mobile?
According to research, 51.3% of people use the internet via mobile. In such times while developing a customer portal, you need to make sure that you make it accessible for your mobile users via mobile application or just making it mobile compatible. This will help you provide omnichannel support and be present wherever your customers are.
Does Salesforce have a partner portal?
As you provide your partners with easy-to-setup tools to track, manage, and analyze their marketing campaigns with Salesforce partner portal, you will directly see the effect on your ROI. Additionally, you can provide them with exclusive access to your content which will help them align the strategy and marketing around your brand .
Is customer portal the right choice?
On the basis of your company’s requirements, you make your choice. If you are looking for a portal that helps you to manage your customers then having a customer portal is the right decision. Whereas, if you want the portal to manage your partners then opt for partner portals.
What is Salesforce Knowledge?
Salesforce Knowledge is a part of the Salesforce Service Cloud and helps businesses build a knowledge base or knowledge management system consisting of articles, FAQs, and other helpful information. It also allows customers to answer questions from other community members and benefit from collective wisdom. With Salesforce Knowledge content, you ...
Why is Salesforce Knowledge important?
It is important to keep updating your articles. Salesforce Knowledge allows you to edit offline as well as live so you can go for both planned and unplanned updating of information.
Why use knowledge base?
Externally, you can use the knowledge base as a self-help portal for your customers to go learn more about your offerings and get information to troubleshoot issues they are experiencing. Internally, the knowledge base is useful in assisting your agents or field service executives to quickly resolve customer issues.
What is knowledge management permissions?
Salesforce Knowledge management permissions allow you to control access and give rights to employees in your company. All internal users by default get the ‘Read’ permission to the published articles. You can assign permissions to those authors who will publish, archive, delete, and manage articles.
How many customers find it difficult to even establish contact with the company?
According to a 2019 report by The Northridge Group, customers want an easy path to resolve their product and service issues and yet more than one-third of customers find it difficult to even establish contact with the company.
Is Salesforce Knowledge easy to use?
Companies that use Salesforce Knowledge have rated it high for user satisfaction and ease of use. It is easy to integrate if you’re already using Salesforce CRM, and you can centralize all your operations and data which further drives collaboration between various departments.
Key Points – What You Need to Know
Content Management
- The Knowledge Lifecycle and Versioning
Giving your team access to provide feedback either via chatter comments, ratings, or (for super users/authors) directly editing drafts is critical to ensuring your knowledge base is polished for your customers. The Knowledge Lifecycleis cyclical and stresses continuous improvements to c…
Channels
- Once you have your articles published, you have several channels to share them with. These channels are like audiences for your content — Internal users, Partners, Customers, and the general Public.
Approval Processes
- As with most Salesforce objects, you can create an approval process for articles. This is invaluable for controlling what content is published, especially if you have a public knowledge base and need to screen content for customer-facing articles. The approval processes for knowledge articles work more or less like any other, but there are special approval actions that a…
Knowledge Features
- Ratings
One feature of Salesforce Knowledge is the ability to let your users rate the content. In Classic Knowledge this was always a 1-5 star rating, but in Lightning Knowledge it’s a simpler thumbs-up or thumbs down rating system. (When migrating, 3,4,5 stars are converted to thumbs-up and 1,2 … - Data Categories
One of the critical features of Salesforce Knowledge is Data Categories and Data Category Groups. These are two major functions — article organization and article access. Data Categories allow you to organize your article content in a hierarchical way. They can also be grouped into D…
Topics
- Adding topics to articles lets you easily classify them based on content and provides easier searching within your knowledge base. Think of these like keywords. A single article can have a multitude of topics assigned depending on the content. (Just don’t over-assign topics because then searches could return irrelevant results). Topics are different from Data Categories in that t…
Case Deflection
- With customer support teams feeling overwhelmed, Salesforce can help manage the high support volume and Knowledge is one of the methods. Exposing knowledge articles to your external and public users is a great way to deflect support cases from your service agents. A robust knowledge base will empower your customers to self-service rather than flooding your case queue with que…
Using Apex with Knowledge
- One final important feature of Knowledge is that it can have Apex triggers and be accessed through Apex code. In fact, there are standard apex classes relating to knowledge management that can be called in Apex for publishing, archiving, searching, and more. In Classic Knowledge this was more restrictive, but the Lightning Knowledge data architecture change included these …
Keep Learning!
- Lightning Knowledge is just one facet of the Lightning. To learn more about the Lightning Experience you can check out some webinars and other blogs on the topic! Why Lightning? Why Now? Lightning Experience is the next generation of Salesforce. Take advantage of the new features in Lightning and learn why now is the right time for Salesforce Lightning. Become a Ma…