How is Experience Cloud used for self-service in Service Cloud?

Experience Cloud powers self-service portals where customers can search the Knowledge base, submit and track cases, and participate in community forums — reducing inbound support volume. Key capabilities:

1. Knowledge Search — federated search surfaces articles based on data category visibility for the guest or authenticated user.
2. Community Cases — customers can create, view, and update their own cases from the portal.
3. Case Deflection — before case submission, relevant articles are suggested, reducing unnecessary case creation; case deflection rate is a key metric tracked in community reports. The Customer Service template is pre-built for self-service use cases.