# What your customers see > Source: https://support.usebluehill.com/support-customer-portal-and-help-center | Updated: 2026-10-26T23:46:59Z ## Four ways a customer reaches you | Channel | What happens | |---|---| | **Email** | The customer writes to your support address (*support@support.acme.com*, or a mailbox you forward). A ticket is created under the brand that owns the address, with the sender as the requester. | | **Contact form** | The customer fills in the **Contact support** form on your help center. | | **Customer portal** | A signed-in customer clicks **New ticket** in the portal. | | **Your team** | An agent creates a ticket or new email by hand. See [Create a ticket or a new email](./support-create-a-ticket-or-email). | Every channel ends in the same inbox and the same ticket. The **Channel** field on the ticket records which one it was. ## The contact form The help center's **Contact support** page is headed **Tell us what's going on. We reply within one business day.** The customer enters **Your name**, **Email**, a **Subject** and a **Message**, which has a small rich-text editor with bold, italic, underline, lists, links and **Add screenshot** (up to six images, pasted, dragged or picked). Signed-in visitors have their name and email filled in. The help center contact form While the customer types, a **Before you submit** panel can suggest up to three published articles that might answer the question, and **Get an instant answer** asks the AI assistant when it is enabled for the site. If the brand has a support email or phone number set under **Support settings → Help center → Contact channels**, **Email us** and **Call us** cards appear above the form. The page footer reads **Powered by BlueHill**. After **Submit request**, the customer sees **Request received** with the ticket's reference number, and the ticket appears in your inbox with the channel *Portal*. The form can be switched off per help center under **Support settings → Help center → Features → Contact form**. ## The emails a customer receives | Email | When | |---|---| | **Auto-reply** | As soon as a ticket is opened by email or the contact form, if the brand has **Auto-reply** on. The default says *Thanks for reaching out — we've opened ticket #12345678 and a team member will reply soon.* Administrators edit it on the brand's **Identity** tab. | | **Replies** | Every reply an agent sends. The subject is *Re: the original subject [AS-12345678]*; the earlier message is quoted underneath, as in ordinary email. | | **Forwarded conversation** | When an agent uses **Forward…** to send the conversation to another address. | | **Satisfaction survey** | When an agent clicks **Send CSAT survey**, or automatically on resolution if your administrator has enabled it. The default subject is *How did we do?* | Internal notes, status changes and assignments are never emailed to the customer. All outbound email needs a verified sending domain on the brand; see [Add and verify a custom domain](./support-support-settings-brands-and-email#add-and-verify-a-custom-domain). ## Ticket numbers Each ticket has a number made of the brand's prefix and either an eight-digit reference (*AS-54351077*, the default) or a sequential number (*AS-16683*) if the brand uses sequential numbering. Emails show the full label in the subject line; the portal shows the number without the prefix. Customers can quote either form, and so can your team: typing *54351077*, *AS-54351077* or *#54351077* into the inbox search finds the ticket. ## When a customer replies by email A reply is matched to its ticket by the hidden email headers that every mail program adds, and as a fallback by the *[AS-12345678]* token in the subject. The match works even if the customer changes the subject line, and a reply from a new address (a colleague replying from their own mailbox, say) joins the ticket when it is clearly part of the same thread. What the reply does to the ticket: - It appears in the conversation and is marked **Customer replied**; the subject goes bold in the inbox. - A ticket in a pending, solved or closed status moves back to *Open*, unless your administrator has limited this to solved and closed tickets. See [Why a ticket reopened](./support-statuses-priority-and-sla#why-a-ticket-reopened). - A reply to a ticket that was merged lands on the ticket that was kept. - A reply to a deleted ticket restores it. If none of the matching rules fit, the email starts a new ticket. Merge it into the original with **Merge into…**. ## The customer portal The customer portal is the signed-in part of your help center, where customers see their own tickets. People get in by invitation (**Support → Portal users → Invite portal user**) or, if you allow it, by creating their own account from the portal's **Sign up** link. Signing in uses a code emailed to them, so there is no password to forget. What a customer sees depends on how their account is set up: - A portal user **linked to a customer** sees every ticket of that customer, from any colleague. - An **unlinked** portal user sees only the requests they submitted themselves, with the note **Showing requests you've submitted.** - Portal access must include **Support tickets** (or **Full portal**). Otherwise the **Tickets** link is hidden. The **Support tickets** page has **All**, **Active** and **Solved** tabs. Each ticket shows its subject, number, message count, status and last update. Customers see only the four buckets, **Open**, **Pending**, **Solved** and **Closed**, never your custom status names, and never internal notes or activity. **New ticket** opens a dialog headed **New support ticket** with a **Subject** and a message editor. Inside a ticket, the customer reads the conversation as chat bubbles and replies in **Write a reply…**. On a solved or closed ticket the portal warns **This ticket is solved — replying will reopen it.** Tickets you merged or deleted are hidden, and an old link to a merged ticket redirects to the kept one. > **Tip:** Linking a portal user to their customer is what gives them the company-wide view. Unlinked users are fine for one-off requesters, but a customer's main contacts should be linked. The Customers guides cover inviting contacts and setting portal access. ### Self sign-up Under **Support settings → Help center → Self sign-up**, you can **Let visitors create their own portal accounts**. Restrict it with **Allowed email domains**, tick **Auto-link customers** to connect new accounts to the customer whose domain matches, and choose what self-signups can access: **Support tickets**, **Onboarding & tasks** or both. ## The satisfaction survey The survey email has a **Rate your experience** button. The survey page shows stars (for scales up to five) or numbered buttons, an **Anything else? (optional)** box and **Submit feedback**, and thanks the customer once. Scores appear under **Support settings → CSAT**. See [CSAT surveys](./support-canned-responses-ai-and-csat#csat-surveys). ## The help center itself The public help center serves your published knowledge bases with search, categories, a **Contact support** page and, when enabled, an **Ask AI** chat. Its branding, custom domain, contact channels and AI settings are under **Support settings → Help center**, and its articles are written in the Wiki. The Wiki guides cover publishing articles; **Insert a help article** in the composer is how agents link to them from a reply. Next: [FAQ and troubleshooting](./support-faq-and-troubleshooting).