Half of all support email is one question in disguise: any update on my problem? The customer portal answers it before it is asked. Customers log in, open tickets, watch the status change and read the whole conversation in one place - and your agents stop being a telephone helpdesk for ticket numbers.
OTRS ships with a second, separate interface that most fresh installs never switch on: the customer interface. Agents work in the agent interface; customers get their own login where they see only their tickets. It does not replace email - a customer can still just write to you - but every customer who checks the portal instead of phoning is time handed back to your team. This page sets it up properly and says honestly what it will not do.
A logged-in customer can open a new ticket into the right queue, watch its state move from new to open to closed, reply inside the conversation, and read back the entire history months later. For your team the gain is quieter inboxes and fewer duplicate chases: the customer who can see that their ticket is open and answered stops opening a second ticket asking about the first one. Companies can also be grouped, so a manager at a customer company can see the tickets their own staff raised - and nobody else's.
Customers judge the portal in the first ten seconds. Use queue names in customer language - 'Billing and invoices' beats an internal code. Keep the new-ticket form short: every extra field you demand (the system calls them dynamic fields) is a reason to abandon the form and phone you instead, so ask only what agents genuinely need to start work. And keep the status names honest - a ticket marked closed that is not solved teaches customers to ignore the portal forever.
There are not two systems. A ticket opened on the portal is the same ticket an agent answers, and a customer who starts by email can later log in and see that conversation too. Email notifications can carry a link straight to the ticket, which is the gentlest way to move people onto the portal: they click once to check a status, and the habit forms by itself. Keep email fully working in parallel - the portal is an extra door, not a replacement door you lock behind people.
The customer interface is functional, not beautiful - it comes from the same era as the agent interface and looks it. Basic branding is possible, but it will not feel like a modern SaaS portal, and there is no official mobile app experience to promise anyone. Adoption also takes a nudge: link it from your website, print it on invoices, mention it when you close a ticket. Some customers will always prefer email, and that is fine - the portal pays for itself with the ones who do switch.
The full OTRS helpdesk installation with every screen shown live - server, database, installer and first login.
▶ Watch Full VideoNot by email - anyone can write to your support address and get a ticket. The portal does need an account, because the login is what guarantees a customer sees only their own tickets and history.
No. A customer user sees only their own tickets. The one deliberate exception is a company view, where people linked to the same customer company can see that company's tickets - useful for a manager, and still invisible to everyone outside the company.
Basic branding is possible through the system configuration - logo and header changes are the realistic level. Expect a tidy version of the standard interface rather than a fully custom design.