From Setup to Success: Enabling Salesforce Customer Portal

Jessica B.

Seasoned technical writer giving you top Salesforce Tips.

Updated: Jan 13th, 2025

What is Customer Portal in Salesforce?

Customer Portals in Salesforce are self-service portals where customers can access their accounts, submit and track support tickets, and view order history. You can host knowledge articles, support resources, and FAQs on your customer portals.

Using Salesforce to create your customer portals means it is fully integrated with your Salesforce CRM system which means your customers will have access to your CRM data without needing to switch between two systems. You can customize your portals and tailor them to meet your business needs.

Benefits of Customer Portal Salesforce

We’ve summarized a few benefits of using Salesforce Customer Portal:

Improved customer satisfaction by providing a platform where customers can find information and troubleshoot issues on their own.

Reduced costs due to customers resolving their own issues instead of contacting the customer support team.

Increased efficiency by automating manual tasks, freeing up your team to focus on strategic planning.

If your business is looking for a way to connect with your customers and provide them with a platform to troubleshoot their issues then Salesforce Customer Portals is a great option.

How to Enable a Customer Portal in Salesforce?

Follow these steps to enable customer users in your Salesforce portals:

Enable Customer Portals:

1. Navigate to Setup and enter Customer Portals settings into the Quick Find box.

2. Select Customer Portal Settings, click Edit, select Enable Customer Portal, and Save.

Create a Customer Portal:

1. Navigate to Setup and enter Customer Portals settings into the Quick Find box.

2. Select Customer Portals and click New.

3. Enter a name and description for your portal and Save.

Assign a Profile to a Customer Portal:

1. Navigate to the Customer Portals page and click Edit next to the portal you want to assign the profile to.

2. In Assigned Profiles, enable the Active checkbox next to the profile and Save.

Create Customer Portal Users:

1. Navigate to Setup and enter Users in the Quick Find Box.

2. Select Users, click New and enter the user information.

3. In the Profil drop-down, select the profile you assigned to the customer portal and Save.

Once you have completed the above steps, your customers can access a Customer Portal by navigating to the portal URL and entering their credentials.

Additional Tips

You can create different portals to suit the different needs of your customers.

Portals are customizable so you can style the portal to match your business branding and add features that suit the needs of your customers.

You can control access to your portals by using Salesforce permissions, this means you can restrict certain features to specific customers.

For a detailed guide, visit the Salesforce website.

Salesforce Customer Portal Examples

Salesforce Customer Portals can be used by businesses across various industries to provide customers with self-service digital cloud experiences.

Retail businesses can create a portal for customers to make purchases, track orders, exchange or return items, and view their purchase history.

If your business offers financial services you could create a customer portal where your customers can make payments, view account statements, and apply for credit cards or loans.

Software companies can complement a portal for customers to access support resources, download updates, and submit support tickets.

If your business offers telecommunication services, customers can use the portal to manage their accounts, troubleshoot issues, and view bills.

Healthcare companies can offer a portal where patients can schedule appointments, view medical records, and settle bills.

Still not sure if Salesforce Client Portals are right for you? Here are a few specific examples:

Hulu implemented a Customer Portal where users can manage subscriptions, watch shows, and trouble shoot technical issues.

AirAsia offers a customer portal where customers can book flights, manage bookings, and complete flight check-ins.

BigCommerce allows customers to process and track orders.

Salesforce Customer Portals can be used in a variety of ways and are flexible so you can customize them to meet your specific business needs.

Enable Salesforce CRM Content

Follow these steps to enable Salesforce CRM content:

1. Navigate to Setup and type Salesforce CRM Content in the Quick Find Box.

2. Select Salesforce CRM content, click Enable Salesforce CRM content and Save

Now that you have enabled Salesforce CTM Content, you must assign feature licenses to users. This can be done from the Salesforce CRM Content page.

If you want to assign feature licenses to users automatically:

1. Navigate to the Salesforce CRM Content Page and click Auto assign feature licenses to new and existing users.

2. Select Autoassign.

If you choose to assign feature licenses to users manually:

1. Navigate to the Salesforce CRM Content page and select Manage Users.

2. Choose the users you want to assign feature licenses to and click Edit.

3. In Feature Licenses, click the Salesforce CRM Content feature license.

Now that you have assigned feature licenses to users, they can see Salesforce CRM Content.

Additional Tips

Salesforce CRM Content user interfaces are customizable so you can include features that your users may need and match them to your business branding.

You can choose to enable Salesforce CRM Content for specific users or all users.

When enabling Salesforce CRM Content for specific users, ensure you assign the correct permissions to the users.

Examples of Salesforce CRM Content

We’ve listed a few examples of how you can use Salesforce CRM Content:

Your sales teams can store and share sales materials including product brochures, presentations, and case studies.

Marketing team members can access and share marketing materials including social media posts, templates, and brochures.

Customer support teams can store and share knowledge resources, troubleshooting resolutions, and a variety of other support resources.

You can improve your team’s productivity and facilitate collaboration using Salesforce CRM Content.

Titan: A Third Party App with Robust Salesforce Integration

Using Salesforce to its full extent can be a little daunting, especially if you have no coding knowledge. Titan is a good option to consider with its no-code interface, you can effortlessly build scalable organization workflows with no-code customer portal to connect your customers, partners, and teams. Users can collaborate on the same projects, walk clients through complex document flows, and track the progress of forms across multiple stakeholders.

We hope to see you soon! 

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Disclaimer: The comparisons listed in this article are based on information provided by the companies online and online reviews from users. If you found a mistake, please contact us.