Quality standards for a good NOC service and Service Desk

An IT management service without the optimal level of quality and the right objectives can harm your operation even more than not having any service. This can have serious consequences such as unattended tickets, poor customer service, network failures, etc.

The outsourced service provider, having greater authority and knowledge to make suggestions, can help you establish the most appropriate requirements for your operation. In this article we will talk about the most important standards to provide an excellent service to your end users it help desk job.

Benefits of having quality standards in your NOC and Service Desk

Whenever possible, the manager should establish and maintain quality standards for the service, since this allows setting requirements for hardware, operating systems, software applications and customer service.

This will allow our consultants to help you establish certain competencies, skill sets, and mandatory certifications for NOC / Service Desk personnel .

Some of the benefits of this methodology are:

• More efficient maintenance / incident resolution.
  
• Faster Internet for the end user.
  
• Faster training and knowledge transfer between NOC and Service Desk.
  
• Facilitates infrastructure configuration of remote monitoring and administration tools and professional service automation solutions.
  
• Provides metrics and standardized performance reports.

Standards for a good service of your NOC and Service Desk

Some standards required to provide hardware services, operating systems, software applications, and services at end-user locations are typically:

• Specific servers supported by the provider, with their hardware and BIOS versions for desktops and laptops.
  
• Routers, access points, switches, and firewalls supported by specific providers.
  
• Voice hardware with its compatible BIOS versions.
  
• Specific hardware, smartphones and PDAs with a compatible operating system.
  
• Guarantees for specific hardware.
  
• Supported operating systems and patch levels.
  
• Business software application lines, versions and patch levels supported.
  
• Antivirus, antispam, antispyware solutions compatible in their versions and patch levels.
  
• Vendor-specific backup solutions, versions and patch levels.
  
• Remote data storage.
  
• Specific network security protocols and access controls.
  
• Specific broadband requirements.
  
• Other specific relationships with external providers.

Services excluded from the SLA and deliverables

At Zentius, in addition to qualifying the terms under which end user support will be provided, we establish the services that will be considered out of scope and specifically excluded from the deliverables and SLAs of the NOC and Service Desk, this with the aim of providing quality service to all our clients

Some examples of services out of scope may be the following:

• Service to parts, equipment or software not covered by the supplier / manufacturer's warranty / support.
  
• The cost of any part, equipment or shipping costs.
  
• The cost of any software, software license or renewal and its upgrade fees.
  
• The cost of any additional providers, manufacturer support, or incident fees required to deliver the service.
  
• The cost of bringing the end user or customer's facilities up to the minimum standards required for the service.
  
• Failure due to fortuitous causes, modifications to the building, power failures or other adverse environmental conditions and other factors beyond the control of the outsourced provider.
  
• Services and repairs necessary for the alteration or modification of equipment, operating systems, software applications or services other than those authorized by the provider's NOC or Service Desk personnel; including alterations, software installation and modifications of any kind made by the client, its other suppliers or any person outside the NOC or Service Desk.
  
• Maintenance of software applications unless specifically included in the service agreement and the SLA Programming (modification of the software code) and the program (software), unless specifically included in the service agreement and SLA.
  
• Training services of any kind.

It is important that the quality standards and requirements for a service are made known to the customer before starting the service. This will help reduce misunderstandings and improve the performance of IT solutions.

At Zentius we are experts in IT service management and we have technological solutions that will help you increase the efficiency of all areas of your company and increase cash flow, come to us.