Winter 2005 Newsletter: Monitoring Sampling Customer Experience
Originally published January 18, 2005

Letter from the Publisher
by Jim Jenkins

Sampling the Customer Experience
by Mike Burke
Learn how HeartBeat™ availability and performance monitoring can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your system.

Asked and Answered
Read our answers to some of our readers' most critical testing questions.

Fermentations
by Chuck Blethen
In this issue, our in-house Vigneron, Chuck Blethen, gives a little insight into his passion for wine making.

Letter from the Publisher
Winter 2005

Happy New Year! I hope that this letter finds you well rested from the holiday season ready for a successful 2005. We at IQ Services are excited about the many new opportunities to serve you that we are developing this year. First, and most obviously, is the creation of our quarterly newsletter.

In order to keep you up-to-date on the latest news at IQ Services, share some of our thoughts and perspective on the state of our industry and give you a glimpse at the lighter side of our company, we’ve developed a quick-read publication that will hopefully give you information that you can put to work for your business.

This month, we take a look at the basics of HeartBeat™, our end-to-end availability monitoring. You can also read a case study that outlines the challenges and successes of one of our customers, PPL. We’ve also included discounts for you to attend some of the trade shows we’re attending this quarter.

When we founded IQ Services in 1996, we knew we were entering into a fast-paced and growing industry. Systems had become too complex to test using traditional testing approaches. The ROI and customer satisfaction associated with using the new technologies depended on much more than just telecommunications. For those of us who were making our living installing and supporting the technologies we now test, the challenge was developing tools and processes to cost effectively support our customers. Today’s systems include a wide variety of equipment, software and networks that must all work together in a way that is transparent to customers and provides higher levels of customer service. The challenges multiply when you recognize that testing is one of those critical activities that can be especially difficult to plan and schedule. After 9 years’ experience providing testing services to virtually every industry, we believe we are uniquely positioned to support our customers in the delivery of excellence to their customers.

2005 looks like it’s going to be another year of significant challenge and growth. I wish you great success throughout the coming year. If you have a topic you’d like to see discussed in the newsletter, please let us know. Hopefully, this publication will become one that you enjoy reading just as much as we enjoy producing it.

Sincerely,

Jim Jenkins
President & CEO

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Sampling the Customer Experience

HeartBeat™ Availability and Performance Monitoring

Proactive end-to-end availability and performance monitoring reliably and economically ensures that your voice systems continuously provide the positive customer experience you require.

The fully automated HeartBeat™ process initiates regularly scheduled test calls that traverse the public telephone network and access your systems just like your customers. Once answered, each test call interacts with your system following a script that you specify, retrieving account balance information, checking on a flight arrival or package delivery or even interacting with a live agent.

Tell us how your customers use your systems, what types of responses and response times are acceptable and which conditions would make for a less than satisfactory experience should they appear.

We’ll set up an automated test call process that accesses and interacts with your system as often as you require. HeartBeat™ acts just like a real customer, so you can be confident that all elements of your system - from the toll-free routing in the network cloud to the off-site third party service bureau providing account balance information - continue to be available and perform as you require. If they’re not, HeartBeat™will let you know at any time of the day or night.

The notification will tell you exactly which issue was detected. All HeartBeat™ calls are recorded start to finish and the recordings are posted to the secure Monitor Control Web Site. You have full access to all of the data we collect. If you need someone else involved, they can hear it, too. We know that hearing is helpful and, for some people, hearing is believing. You don’t have to rely on anecdotal information and you don’t have to try to recreate the problem. HeartBeat™ captures it for you. Knowing the nature of the issue and having a specific example in hand significantly accelerate the trouble shooting process.

Every Monday, you’ll receive via E-mail a complete log of all test calls placed into your system during the previous week. It provides complete details for all test calls that identified an issue.

At your convenience, you can log in to the Monitor Control Web Site to:

Listen to test calls that spawn notifications to determine what the issue might be and whether or not immediate attention is warranted.
Check the outcome of all test calls made in the last ten days. Have any interesting patterns developed?
Graph host response time across all calls for the last day or the last ten days. Do response times increase during peak busy hour? Does the blocking rate go up?
Turn notifications off for a brief period of time when you know you have a issue or planned downtime will make the system unavailable.
Make a test call to verify a fix has resolved an issue.

With HeartBeat™ on the job, you will know that your systems are available and performing, as you require - all day, every day. You can count on it and go home with confidence.

-By Mike Burke

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Asked & Answered

If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in our quarterly newsletter, contact us!

Q: I know I need to test my new solution, but I have no idea how to do it. Can you help me?

A: Yes! We frequently work with people who need assistance to define the testing component of their new system implementation plan. IQ Services’ testing experts have years of experience calculating proper load levels for a solution, configuring test cases, determining test objectives, selecting appropriate report styles and much more. We will help you every step of the way. Our simple implementation documents make it easy for you to submit the information we need to set up your StressTest™. Before your test, we’ll help you understand what you’ll be able to see in real time via ORCA™, the Online Reporting and Charting Application, as well as how we’ll formally report the analyzed test results.

If you need help over and above what we provide standard with our test support services, we offer consulting services to help you with more in-depth needs. One of our consultants can work with you to create an RFP, respond to an RFP, develop a business solution life cycle test plan and define acceptance criteria to help you determine when a new or upgraded solution is ready for production. We also have the expertise to provide testing project management support that goes beyond the limits of the StressTest™ or HeartBeat™ implementation. This is only a sampling of the work our consultants can provide. Once you’ve realized you need to test your business solution, contact IQ Services for help throughout your project.

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Fermintations

To launch our company newsletter, the company asked for me to write a short column about my hobby – winemaking. Nearly everyone who knows me is aware that I am seriously into wine – grape growing, winemaking and wine tasting. The City of Scottsdale learned about my hobby and engaged me to teach evening classes on winemaking and wine etiquette several times a year.

People who focus on growing grapes are called viticulturalists. People who focus on winemaking are called oenologists. We have a small vineyard here in Scottsdale, Arizona, where we grow our own grapes. We also have a wine cellar where we make our own wine.

People who grow their own grapes and make wine from them are called Vignerons. That is why you see the term "Vigneron" after our names on our wine labels. We currently grow 10 varieties of grapes to make wines and buy additional grape juice from California to bring our total production up to about 400 bottles per year. I try to visit Hunter Valley in Australia each spring to learn more from my winemaker friends there. It will be fun to write a small paragraph or two each newsletter about wine for those who are interested.

In my professional life, I am the manager of IQ Services reseller business. My duty is to educate the resellers and their customers as to the benefits of end-to-end load testing their complex communications solutions.

- Chuck Blethen, Vigneron in Residence, Black Mountain Oasis Vineyard, Scottsdale, AZ

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