The Customer Portal is a Sonar tool designed to allow end-users to manage their accounts, make bill payments, and change their personal information when needed. This article will walk you through the various pages and tabs available within the Customer Portal and provide some examples of common actions you can take.
If you're a direct customer of Sonar, and you're looking for instructions on getting the Customer Portal tied to your instance, those instructions can be found here | Adding a Customer Portal to Your Sonar Instance
The Login Page
The first page you'll have access to when you're first provided an account to the portal. In most cases, when you sign up for a service with an ISP using Sonar, you'll be sent an email that will provide your username and initial password, along with a link to the customized portal for your ISP.
Login Page Field Breakdown
ˡᵒᵍᶦⁿ ᵖᵃᵍᵉ 1. The Logo and Login Portal message is set by the ISP and will differ from portal to portal.
2. The Username and Password fields are where you enter the information provided to you by the ISP, at least for the first login.
3. The Login button allows you to access your portal account. If either the username or the password is incorrect, the login will fail and a message will appear: 4. If you have forgotten your Password or your Username, using the option located here will initiate the recovery process using your Email Address. If the email address you enter as part of the password reset is invalid, you'll need to contact your Internet Service Provider to ensure your account information is up to date, and recreate your account.
5. If you have access to the portal, but an account wasn't created for you by your ISP, you can Register an account using the Email Address linked to your account with your service provider.
6. The Language selector here allows you to change your individual portal display in English or in French. The default portal language is set by the ISP.
First Time Registration
If an account for the portal wasn't automatically created by your service provider, you can always register yourself. All you need for this process is a link to the Customer Portal and an email address on file with your service provider.
Navigate to the Customer Portal, and click on the "New portal user? Register an account here!" button
Fill in the email address matching the information you provided to your service provider, and click on "Lookup Email Address"
If the email address provided matches your information, an email will be sent out with instructions to finalize the registration process with a temporary password and a username.
If the email address you entered doesn't match the records from your service provider, an error message will appear:In this case, we recommend you contact your service provider for further assistance in creating an account.
Sample Email to Customers
Reflected in the fold below is a sample email that can be used to alert your customers to the launch of your customer portal, including helpfuls steps and insight into the features offered. If you would like to use the sample email, simply update the bolded portions with the information specific to your ISP.
Sample Email:
Example Internet is committed to ensuring that every one of our customers receives a great experience not only with our service but our support tools as well. This includes our self-serve customer portal experience. We are excited to announce the launch of our new portal https://portal.exampleinternet.com today.
Our new portal features a new, sleek design that not only contains exciting new self-help features but reworks the navigation to be much easier to use. We are really excited about the new portal, since it was made with direct input from many of you... our valued customers.
Some features you can expect to find:
• Mobile Design - Same great experience on a tablet or mobile phone! • New Invoice - Simpler and much easier to read and understand. • Review, download, and pay your invoices easily. • Open a support ticket and/or view existing support tickets. • Update your information and securely add/remove preferred payment methods. • Set your payment method to auto-pay so that you will not have to worry about overdue invoices.
Customers can access the newly improved portal either by directly going to https://portal.exampleinternet.com starting today or by going to our website at https://exampleinternet.com and clicking on the "Manage Account" button.
As always, our dedicated support staff are standing by for any questions you may have. We are here to help!
Your Example Support Team.
Customer Portal Pages
Once you're logged in to the Customer Portal, you'll be greeted first with the Billing Page, which we'll explore first:
The Billing Page
The Billing page provides an overview of your account status with your Internet Service Provider. It reflects your current account balance while also providing details on your payment information and generated invoices. This is the page you'll land on as soon as you log in to your Customer Portal account.
Billing Page Breakdown
Billing Page 1. The Navigation Sidebar allows you to explore the various other pages of the Customer Portal. It also allows you to manage your account details, or log out. The latter options can also be performed by clicking on the avatar located in the bottom-left corner.
2. The Amount Due, which is displayed in a few different locations on the Customer Portal, will keep a current tally of the value of any invoiced transactions.
3. This section will also show a running tally of any open invoices, and by clicking on the "Make a payment" button, you'll be taken to the Billing section of the Customer Portal to add a (or select an existing) payment method.
4. The Total Balance section reflects the total of all transactions that have been added to the account. This value may differ from both the Amount Due and the Next Billing Cycle Amount.
5. The Next Billing Cycle Amount will show how much will be invoiced when the next billing cycle begins, which will vary between accounts and depends on the settings set by your Internet Service Provider.
6. The Next Billing Date is shown here and will reflect when the next invoice, or billing cycle, will begin. The billing cycle also resets any data usage on your account.
7. The Data Usage will appear when the Internet Service you're subscribed to has a monthly data cap and will track your usage during the Billing Cycle.
8. The Recent Transactions table will display details on any transactions that occurred within the current Billing Period, including the type of Transaction (which is usually the service name), the date of the transactions, and the amount.
9. The Credit Card section will list any credit cards that have been linked to your account, allowing you to be aware of which ones have been added and when they expire. If a particular card is set to auto-pay, an indicator will appear next to the card in question: 10. The Bank Accounts section will show the account number of any bank accounts added to your Customer Portal account. If a particular bank account is configured for auto-payment, an indicator will appear next to the acount in question: 11. The Invoices section shows the details of any invoices on your account, including their creation date, the invoice number, the amount due on the invoice, and the due date for payment. It also gives you the option to download a copy of the invoice.
The Support Tickets Page
The Support Tickets page is where you can reach out to the support team of your Internet Service Provider directly through the portal. Any communication sent between the email supplied on your account and the mailbox set up by your Internet Service provider will be tracked and can be replied to through the Customer Portal.
Ticket Page Breakdown
ᴬ ᵐᵒʳᵉ ᶜᵒᵐᵖˡᵉᵗᵉ ᵀᶦᶜᵏᵉᵗ ᵖᵃᵍᵉ 1. Clicking here will open the ticket creation window, allowing you to send an email to your service provider. You'll need to provide a subject and some details regarding the reason for the ticket: 2. The Ticket section displays a view of all tickets on your account, along with their status - the status will indicate whether the ticket is waiting for a response from you (Awaiting Response), Waiting for a response from your Service Provider, or Closed.
3. Clicking on the ticket name will open the conversation history for the ticket, allowing you to send a reply to your service provider based on an open ticket.
The Data Usage Page
The Data Usage page will only be visible to you if your Internet Service Provider has enabled it for viewing in the Customer Portal Settings that they've configured.
The Data Usage page will track and display the amount of bandwidth you've consumed in the previous 12 billing periods in a bar graph, as seen below:
Data Usage tracker field breakdown
ᵉˣᵃᵐᵖˡᵉ ᵈᵃᵗᵃ ᵘˢᵃᵍᵉ 1. If your data service has a monthly (or billing cycle-specific) data cap, then this button will allow you to use Data Top-Off services created by your Internet Service Provider to add additional capacity to your current billing cycle.
2. This section tracks the data usage for the current billing period, displaying the current usage on the left, and the data cap, if enabled, on the right.
3. This section tracks historical data usage for the last 12 Billing Periods in a bar graph, each bar representing the total consumed bandwidth in any given month.
The Contracts Page
The Contracts page will only be visible to you if your Internet Service Provider has enabled it for viewing in the Customer Portal Settings that they've configured.
The Contracts Page will display all contracts for your account, including their status (whether signed or unsigned) and the ability to download a copy of your signed contracts:
Contracts Page Field Breakdown
ᵉˣᵃᵐᵖˡᵉ ᶜᵒⁿᵗʳᵃᶜᵗˢ ᵖᵃᵍᵉ 1. The Contracts table contains every contract on your account, its name, its status, and the ability to sign or download a copy of the contract.
2. The Contract Name column displays the name of the contract - duplicate contracts can be added to your account to be resigned, so keep that in mind when looking at the name if you need a specific version (such as "Terms & Conditions" pictured above).
3. The Status column shows the status of each contract, whether it is Signed or Pending Signature.
4. The Action column allows you to sign contracts that are in a Pending Signature status or download a copy of Signed contracts.
Signing a Contract
When you have a contract in a Pending Signature status, as pictured with the "Terms & Conditions" above, clicking on the "Sign Contract" action will open a new tab in your browser that will allow you to add a digital and drawn signature:
The "My Details" Page
The "My Details" page is where you'll find the information your Internet Service Provider has associated with you on your account. Your name, email address, and phone number are all among the information here, and can all be changed without needing to involve your Internet Service Provider.
While changing the contact information might seem like an easy way to transition account ownership, we recommend always contacting the Internet Service Provider to make a change like that in order to ensure everything is updated correctly.
"My Details" Page field breakdown
ᵉˣᵃᵐᵖˡᵉ ᶦⁿᶠᵒʳᵐᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᵖᵃᵍᵉ 1. The name you provided to your Internet Service Provider is listed here. You can update your name to correct misspellings using this tool, but if you need to assign your account to someone else entirely, contact your service provider.
2. The Email Address shown here is used to send billing alerts, service notifications and password resets. Your email address will also receive copies of any ticket communication between you and the ISP.
3. The Phone Numbers section is used to facilitate contact between you and your service provider, as these numbers are also accessible to your service provider.
4. If you made any changes to the main profile settings, you need to ensure to click "Update Details" for these changes to take effect.
5. If you want to change the password for your account, you need to complete all these sections, using your current password to verify account ownership, then entering the new password twice to ensure accuracy.
6. After all the fields are filled in, the "Change Password" button needs to be clicked in order to ensure the changes take effect.
7. Similarly to the Login screen, this dropdown allows you to modify the language of your Customer Portal account to either English or French.
Updated
by Mitchell Paul-Soumis
