Monthly Archives: January 2020

Incident Management, Management

Understanding How Your Help Desk and NOC Services Connect

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This post about the Help Desk and NOC was initially published on CX Expert. It has been updated to reflect current market trends and information.

Perhaps, there is no other obstacle that causes more concern to managed services providers than how they are going to manage, monitor and provide services to their clients. For companies that are getting into managed services or cloud, one obstacle must be tacked. This obstacle is what you will do about your help desk and NOC. You must determine the best practices to follow, the cost, and many other essential things.

Origin of the NOC

The help desk and NOC is the heart of managed services providers. It is capable of providing redundancy, physical security and an area that is secure for collaboration for technicians to be able to manage and monitor customer environments.

Every managed service provider (MSP) service delivery model needs the NOC. However, many people don’t know where the idea of the NOC came from and how the early MSPs came to rely on them. With the advent of cloud computing and other business process and technological advances, it is essential to know how different factors influenced the NOC for the cloud provider and MSP today.

The idea of the NOC is not new – it has been around for a very long time. Initially, it was a creation of telecommunications, and it was used to monitor and manage telecommunications networks. Technicians sit and receive information in real-time inside the NOC. The NOC’s physical configuration allows for an intimate, secure and safe place for technicians to collaborate and discuss with other technicians on issues and problems that would otherwise be unsafe or unsuitable around other non-approved personnel.

MSPs came into existence in the mid-1990s. During this time, nearly all companies had a business plan. The plan included a 27/7 operational NOC that was physically secure from which to deliver their managed services. These configurations, procedures, and tools used in each of the MSPs were different, but the presence of the physical NOC was an essential and consistent characteristic.

The Help Desk and its Importance

A lot of people confuse the terms help desk and NOC when they serve two different and vital functions. The main reason behind the confusion is easy to understand when you look back at how they both came into being and how they have been split apart gradually in modern time managed services conditions.

We have already discussed the role of NOC, but it is important to look at how the help desk fits in the equation. Older NOCs have the help desk integrated into them to maximize the benefits of security, redundancy and collaborative work environments. The simplest and easiest way of distinguishing and defining the two models is system-based work, and the NOC performs network around the management and monitoring of objects that are under management with the MSP. On the other hand, the help desk is more responsible for interfacing with end-users, and it is also a customer-facing department. It helps to respond to problems and get solutions.

It is easy to see why the two areas seem to be similar. Each company should make these choices on their own, but it is important to understand that there is a difference between the two and they service unique and important functions within managed services practice.

The Interaction Between the Help Desk and the NOC

Now that we know the difference between help desk and the NOC, we must look at how they should interact with each other in managed services practices. It is important to acknowledge that there are different ways in which help desk and the NOC interact and co-exist.

Helpdesk Existing Within the NOC

Having a help desk and a NOC should be evident. All MSP’s logical and physical security controls can be addressed in one physical space. The physical access to workstations, how technicians log in to systems belonging to clients and change management are important to control and can be monitored effectively and be enforced if the NOC has the help desk residing into it.

There are more configurations where the MSP can create an entire floor of their work premises, where the help desk teams and the NOC teams work, complete with secure access, albeit in sections within the secure area. The main purpose of mingling the help desk and the NOC is to take advantage of the process efficiencies and security. If you take the security of your operation into account in the same way, there is no need to build out different facilities. Instead, you can just build it once.

There are many other benefits to have the configuration. Any interaction between the help desk and the NOC is naturally easier when they are both located within the same secure area. This can help with redundancy, and the continuity of the business plans should anything happen to the facility.

The Help Desk Existing Outside the NOC

In larger MSP environments, you will find the help desk outside the NOC. This is common, but it will depend on your unique situation. In most cases, you will find large companies with the help desk located outside the NOC because the help desk team won’t fit within the NOC. Typically, MSPs that need to have multi-time zone help desks or multilingual helpdesk do not manage the MSP centrally, but they have several help desk facilities that are located in different locations.

It is not always needed to build full NOC around all the help desk areas. Therefore, help desks exist outside the NOC. Regardless of how you operate and configure your NOC and help desk, there should be enough controls that deal with how the two elements in your business interact with one another. There should be documentation on the handling of trouble tickets, the handling of the connectivity within the MSP and how the redundancy of power is handled within the MSP organization to maintain operational effectiveness.

Customer Experience

Do the Grammys Epitomize True Customer Experience?

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I’m not a huge fan of modern music to be 100% honest. I’m still stuck in the 80’s and 90’s when it comes to my favorite songs. So you’d probably be surprised that I’m commenting on the “The Grammys – the biggest show in music!” Well, let’s just say that I have a daughter who’s probably one of the biggest Jonas Bros fans so I was forced to watch the show. Now, I’d not normally be commenting on a music show on Customer Experience website. However, right from the start Alicia Keyes did some stuff that stuck out as perfect and lessons we could all learn from.

Don’t Hide From the Truth

Sadly, today is the day that Kobe Bryant and his daughter died in a helicopter crash. Now, I’m not a huge basketball fan. As a proud Canadian from Toronto, I followed the Raptor’s run for the title with rapt attention. But I’m not ashamed to admit that I was a latecomer to the party. Despite my lack of basketball experience or knowledge, I had heard of Kobe Bryant. I cannot recite his stats from memory, but I knew that he had a significant impact on the game.

With his death I really wondered what they would do on the show and if they would acknowledge it or just gloss over it. I expected that they would simply state that he’d died and then briefly mention him. After all, these shows are planned out weeks and months before they are filmed and I was not expecting any major changes.

I was, however, very pleasantly surprised. At the Grammys, Alicia Keyes not only spoke about Kobe, but she also went one step further. With Boyz II Men, Alicia gave an extremely moving tribute to him, his impact and the impact his loss would have on others. It was done well and it was done with respect.

Treat Your Clients Well

Now, since we’re talking about award shows, let’s continue that topic. The Golden Globes was hosted by Ricky Gervais. This show was actually something I was interested in as it’s about TV and movies. The contrast between Ricky and Alicia could not be more pronounced though. It is almost like night and day.

Alicia at the Grammys epitomizes talent with her introduction and launch of the show. Her skill on the piano and ability to riff on the fly is astounding. Ricky Gervais, however, went with a completely different tack. His focus was not on building up, but rather tearing down. While I don’t necessarily disagree with everything he said. In fact, in some ways, I agree with his statements. It is more how he said it & who he said it to. His “targets” were definitely the self-centred actors which is fair. Unfortunately, as a host, his clients were us. His attitude and treatment of the actors was disrespectful at a minimum. Worse, his ongoing attitude throughout the show continued that trend.

It was disappointing and demeaning. It actually devalued Ricky Gervais in my eyes as he is capable of so much more. He could have delivered the same message in a much more professional manner. I can only imagine how he would have acted or treated the death of Kobe in his monologue. If he would have received a mention at all, it would probably have not been anything worth remembering.

Empathize With Your Clients

One of the tenants of good customer experience is the ability to empathize with your clients. Alicia and the Grammys have demonstrated this throughout the show. Aside from a frequent mention of the importance of family and community, they have emphasized the importance Kobe played on the people of LA. This was well done and something I can get behind.

I don’t know if my music tastes have changed. I do know that I will watch the Grammy’s next year without being forced to by my daughter. I’m curious to see if they can surpass this show and improve their customer experience even further. Well done Alicia. Well done, Grammy’s.

Business Planning

Building a NOC or Outsourcing

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This post was initially published on CX Expert. It has been updated and revised based on current technology and changing business requirements.

Regardless of which side of the issue you are, there are a few people who would dispute the fact that the managed services model of facilities offers the most control and security for the client. The reason behind building a NOC should be evident.

If the NOC is built and operated correctly, it will provide a secure and enclosed space for the managed service provider (MSP) to be able to view its managed services operations. You can think of it as a mission control center where managed service providers can view the IT network of the client and manage all the activities that take place across an MSP’s entire network of clientele. The NOC has come to represent one of the characteristics of MSPs for many years. Companies can still rely on software such as Freshdesk CRM to ensure good results.

For the NOC to be effective, it must possess certain features. The features tend to be similar when you compare them side by side. For the MSPs who are starting out, there are cost-effective methods to help them achieve each of these essential features.

Security

It is necessary for a NOC to be secure. However, most people might find it difficult to understand what this means. A lot of smaller MSPs have visions of expensive and large NOCs. These preconceived notions cause smaller businesses concern and many never undertake to build their NOC.

A NOC does not have to be expensive and cost millions of dollars for it to be effective. It is essential to have a NOC enclosed. It should be limited to the employees who can access client networks. Also, the facility should have security controls to ensure that only the authorized employees can enter the NOC. This simply means that you must have locked in place and have systems or people to watch the technicians who come in, work and leave the facility.

If a business is or deals with credit cards for example, the requirement is quite similar and the PCI or PA DSS certifications require a secure facility.

Redundancy and Backups

It is worthless to build a NOC on the sand. The NOC represents the security, stability, and integrity for those MSPs who possess one as well as the clients who rely on them. The NOC should be well-built.

This means that it should take into consideration the natural order of things. This includes how unforeseen problems can happen to throw an MSP’s entire world into problems. Some natural occurrences such as storms, earthquakes and power disruptions can cause havoc on an unsuspecting managed service provider.

Backup power and redundant internet connectivity are just a few of the features that will make a NOC effective and viable.

Sharing of the minds

A good NOC should be able to do more than provide physical and network security. It can offer a managed service provider with something more important than the technological benefits. This means that the MSP’s technicians working in a central place should collaborate to solve problems.

Physically proximate technicians to one another can work together and solve issues concerning client and share information that can help in educating the MSP. As a managed service provider, one of the most important traits is expertise and education related to business and technology. Being in the same room is more superior to sharing information through the email.

Building a virtual NOC

A lot of MSPs choose to forgo building a NOC that is physical in favor of building a virtual NOC. Maybe you don’t know what is involved in constructing a virtual NOC because it is very natural. For you to answer this crucial question, it is important to consult with the UCS which is the Unified Certification Standard because this is the template that exists and addresses how the MSPs should employ a virtual NOC in an environment of managed services.

The certifications of managed services and audits outline the use of virtual NOC and the operation guidelines for technicians as they travel. Operating a virtual NOC and MSP comes with the challenge of maintaining adequate security. As the virtual NOC technicians leave or enter the office, traveling to client sites and going to other locations, keeping physical security, accurate logs and maintaining managed services of high standards can be difficult. Therefore, the MSP should implement certain protocols that will ensure the integrity of client data. Using encryption technologies, poison pill technology, strong authentication and other forms of common sense should be cheap and small MSPs should be able to afford them.

This means that a technician who takes a laptop that was used to monitor a client should be guarded both outside the MSPs office and inside. The managed service provider should, therefore, have a mechanism for auditing the work done by its technicians irrespective of their location. In short, audit procedures and security employed in running a NOC that is physical should also be used to operate a virtual NOC. The redundancy backups and physical security are the only things missing which only a physical NOC can offer.

Partner vs. Build

This is an important issue that consumes the attention of a lot of young entrants to the managed services profession. There is the opportunity to build a virtual NOC that is robust although there are some MSPs who still decide to partner with existing managed service providers in order to leverage that manage services provider’s NOC. Partnering with another MSP to access a physical NOC should not be taken lightly. It is important to know all the facts and make informed decisions for your practices.

Young MSPs come into the partnerships for the reason of having nothing to do with the availability of a physical NOC. It is normally a reason for lack of confidence and business process. However, MSPs should weigh the decision because the wrong choice can lead to unwanted repercussions. It is difficult to advise everyone on the right path in the long run because companies have unique situations. However, if a business decides to partner with a managed service provider who has a NOC, then it is important to choose a partner that has passed the audits.

Customer Experience

STOP PLACING THE BURDEN FOR GOOD CX ON YOUR CUSTOMERS

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This post was originally published on CX Expert. It has been updated to reflect current market trends and new research.

What do you understand by customer experience?

My understanding of customer experience is the customer’s cumulative attitude and feelings towards the interactions and quality of services provided by the supplier or the supplier’s employees.

Customer care determines how a customer perceives the brand. To create a good customer experience, a business owner should ask themselves, “What do my customers want?” All successful companies and business owners ask themselves this question.

A business owner should take the following points into consideration to improve their customer experience:-

Observe

Customers go through a system of mini-experiences that add up together to form what they refer to as customer experience of a given company or business during their interactions with a company or business. Companies need to observe and view the world as their customers. This helps companies to reorganize themselves around the needs of the customers.

Shape

Customer experience has to be designed by shaping all the interactions into desired sequences. This will involve creating and establishing the company cultures and the introduction of new approaches that of course blend well with modern technological advancement. 

Perform

The first two points involve establishing a system of customer care. They basically are writing the customer care constitution of the company in question. Now, sometimes just writing the constitution is not the hardest part, implementing it is. Getting your employees to provide the good customer experience that you intend for your customers is not something you wake up and do but takes time, probably years, to get cemented and becomes a culture in your business.

Let’s take an example so you see what I’m talking about.

I have a friend that bought a laptop. The laptop came installed with the Windows 8 operating system. He didn’t want Windows 8 though, he wanted Windows 10. He didn’t think it was a big deal though, he would get Windows 10 and install it himself, so he thought.

Unfortunately, when he tried installing windows 8 on the laptop, he got an error message. It turns out the laptop wasn’t compatible with windows 10. He tried contacting the store and every time they presented him with a series of emails explaining to him on how he should go about it and every time, it didn’t work.

He personally took the laptop to the store and the response was exactly the same. Nobody at the store was willing to take it upon themselves and install the OS for him instead, they just kept telling him what he should do.

He was so frustrated and really felt the customer experience of the store was of very poor quality. Meanwhile, the employees at the store felt they were offering the best customer experience considering how eager they were at asking him to submit his reviews on customer satisfaction.

Their attitude was that the customer should bear the burden of ensuring the product they bought was working properly and to their satisfaction. The store was losing customers for placing the burden of customer satisfaction and good results on the customer instead of considering the three points I stated initially to rewire their company and create a good customer experience culture.

Good customer experience is supposed to make it easier for a customer to purchase your product, not harder. In the modern world, almost every product you offer is being offered by many other businesses and companies and individuals. The competition is high. Customers are looking for the slightest hurdles, and that will justify their moving from you to another supplier. The options are too many. Don’t let a basic thing like Customer experience keep customers away from your business. Master the three points or customer experience, observe, shape, perform.

The customer is always right, and any change that needs to happen should be done by the businessperson.

What the Business Should Do To Improve CX

Now that I have explained that the burden of a good CX lies with the business owner and not the customer, so what should the business owner do to improve their CX?

Be Likeable to Your Customers.

This involves making it easier for the customer and not easier for you. Don’t come up with terms and conditions that are favorable to you at the expense of the customer. Observe and shape the areas where you receive complaints from the customers. It is important that in your observe phase, you involve the customer. You can get their views through having suggestion boxes and giving them voluntary questionnaires to fill after interaction with them.

Develop a Fan Culture

An important part of CX is the culture of the business.

A customer buys your product at their own convenience, but a fan will go through hurdles and obstacles just to buy your product. Fans will keep you afloat even in the hard times.

Getting fans is not an easy task though.  This could result in a complete overhaul of your business. The overhaul should be done with the customer as the centerpiece – the transformation should be such that everything else revolves around the customer. Your research should ask the right questions – especially those whose answers you don’t like to hear – they are normally the most transformative. Focus on what the customer wants and feels other than the quantitative “how many ………….. how much ……… .” Type of questions.

Conclusion

The customer is always right – even when s/he is wrong.

In the modern era of social media, this is not just a buzzword to get business owners to do better. This is actually a do or die thing – you only need a few dissatisfied customers on social media complaining about your poor handling of customers and boom! Your business is in shatters.

However, a good CX can save you from this. Having the majority of your customers happy about not just your product but also how they were handled by you or your employees could earn you more than you bargained for. Customers are not going to be so happy if you insist on having them cater for themselves during interactions with your business. This burden shouldn’t be born by your customers but you.

Incident Management

How to Build a NOC

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This post was initially published on CX Expert. It has been updated and refreshed before being republished here.

A network operations center (NOC) is the central point of monitoring for your network. It helps to ensure uptime in your business. NOCs are not limited to networks. They can provide visibility into systems management, virtualized infrastructure, IT security and many more. In most cases, only large companies have resources necessary to create a NOC infrastructure that is effective. However, even small and medium businesses can gain visibility into the performance and availability of their networks by creating their own NOCs or using tools that NOCs use.

 For you to create your NOC, you don’t need to have a modern room that is full of expensive and high technology gear for network surveillance. It is possible to create your NOC just about anywhere and have the ability to know where and how network issues occur in time for troubleshooting. We will look at some essential capabilities to build into your network management system and get a NOC field of vision.

Centralize Alert M

When dealing with a growing network with a lot of devices from different manufacturers, alerts can be useful. You should be able to receive them in a single and central location for actionable and easy access and insight.

Alerts may include but are not limited to:

  • performance metrics,
  • availability statistics,
  • errors message,
  • hardware thresholds, and a host of other relevant factors.

The primary challenge with alert management lies in receiving alerts on time and managing them at a centralized level to help in comparing alerts, tracking alert history, eliminating false positives and deducing alert functions.

Group your Network Elements

It is possible to have network hardware in different models, types, versions, from different and unique makers in different locations. They are compatible with different platforms. It is therefore difficult to get an understanding of the network issues given the medley of network devices. The best solution is to create logical groups of your devices. This will allow you to monitor your devices as a group and not disparate entities. You can also create static groups to help you add network nodes manually. You can also add network nodes automatically, but this is based on a pre-defined condition.

You can get a logical understanding of the situation by using grouping devices for monitoring networks. You can also use grouping to set parent-child dependencies between your network elements, and this can allow you to eliminate any redundant alerts and be able to understand the impact of any faulty device on its dependents.

Customize Your Network Diagnostics

You may find it hard and frustrating that even though you have the ability to get network performance and health, you are not capable of dissecting the information as fast as needed. This ties directly to the KPIs you are measuring but in many cases, this problem arises due to the dashboard view that is used to see the network performance data.

You need to use a web-based dashboard because it is the best and can be viewed from anywhere. The ability to customize the dashboard will also allow you to understand your data easier and faster because you will see the things that need attention fast such as:

  • The top interfaces by traffic
  • The top errors and discards
  • The top interfaces by traffic
  • Top interfaces that face maximum percent utilization

Map device topology

You are sometimes faced with the work of searching for the reason that caused your network to go down without any clue if you are a network administrator. However, it is straightforward to pin the problem on a map and trace the source of the problem. You just have to use the mapping topology. This will help you to monitor the availability by looking at a map. You can use the following steps to do it.

  • Discover the nodes of your network such as interfaces, network devices, and servers
  • Place the nodes of your network on a custom map
  • Connect the elements of your network on the ARP table data to get a graphical depiction of both virtual links and physical links.

Unify Management Platforms

The budget is not the only thing involved but also the operational expertise, and management overhead are also needed to run different platforms for network management for different requirements. You can cut back on time and money if you unify the management platform.

Unifying your platforms can also give you a comprehensive view of the NOC functions. Therefore, it is important to look for a solution that can stand alone and still be compatible with other management modules for systems management, network configuration management, and virtualization management. You can simplify your operations if you have the same management platform. It also allows you to customize your interface and doesn’t require a lot of work to manage your NOC.

Make sure you can access the network performance monitoring data of your organization from the comfort of your workstation because this can be the most effective NOC that any network admin could ever have. Also, it is crucial to have the right NOC dashboard to get a comprehensive view that is always available to you. This clearly shows how the network devices are doing and the things that are causing your network downtime. You don’t need a chief network engineer when designing your NOC.

Conclusion

If your company manages multiple networks, then you should be aware of the challenges involved when it comes to monitoring them at once. The data from your clients and your data is private, and your networks should be running without any delays.

Unless you have a time in your business that can handle this high level of network management, you may want to outsource professional support. You can use NOC engineers and technicians to monitor the health of your infrastructure, the capacity of your infrastructure and the capacity of your infrastructure.

With all this important information, they can make informed decisions for your business and adjust the systems to optimize the productivity and performance of your organization. They will send out alerts in case of any issues based on the type, severity, and level of expertise needed to solve the issues and any other things your NOC team specifies. After resolving the issue, you can alter things in your system and monitor your system to prevent the problem from recurring.