Just the Right Amount – Client Checkup at the Service Desk
Monitoring and analysis tools have long been standard practice for servers and networks. On the client side, however, there is still a lack of transparency. Hansgrohe SE, a manufacturer of bathroom fixtures, is a pioneer in this area. Here, the service desk uses a solution that provides a detailed, real-time overview of the caller’s client performance and behavior.
In many companies, servers and networks are monitored around the clock. However, continuous analysis of the performance and behavior of all clients is still not standard practice. At best, an inventory is taken. The condition of the end device or the quality of the connections, on the other hand, remain unknown. Those in charge usually assume that users will contact the service desk if they have a problem!
When a user contacts support, they can describe their symptoms—just as they would during a doctor’s visit—but they are rarely able to provide a diagnosis. A typical symptom: “My SAP isn’t working.”The support representative will likely forward this request for help to the SAP team. However, the actual problem often lies elsewhere than the support desk initially assumes.
In this example, Internet Explorer—the browser used to access SAP—could also be the cause of the problem. In that case, after an initial—usually time-consuming—analysis by the SAP team, the ticket would be forwarded to the infrastructure team without a resolution and with some delay. Thorsten Walther, Head of IT Service Delivery at Hansgrohe, is familiar with such examples. At least, he knows them from hearsay! Because, in reality, they rarely occur anymore at the faucet manufacturer based in Schiltach, Baden.
A carefully controlled data flow from the client
The desire for a solution that takes a closer look at client behavior first took shape among the IT specialists at this long-established company as early as 2014: In the Windows environment, comprehensive data on performance and connectivity status—provided by the operating system—is generally available on the client. To enable service desk staff to use this information for troubleshooting, it simply needed to be collected centrally and made analyzable. Then, service staff could begin their error diagnosis based on facts; they would not be solely dependent on the subjective statements of callers.
However, to ensure that the information is available centrally for analysis, a central repository is first required; IT specialists refer to this as “big data.” Furthermore, the necessary data flow—much like the water supply to a sink—must be efficiently transported through a network of pipes without clogging or damaging it.
This requires technology that can quickly and efficiently transmit data across the network at high speeds. Modern client analytics systems—sometimes referred to as end-user experience monitoring—offer a potential solution. One provider in this still-emerging market segment is the Swiss software company Nexthink S.A., with its eponymous product. Nexthink focuses on client behavior directly at the point of contact with the user—and does so virtually in real time.
It optimizes high-frequency data transmission over the network and stores the information in a central repository that functions as an in-memory database. Last but not least, the data flow arriving at the Service Desk must be regulated for IT specialists according to their needs—much like a Hansgrohe bathroom faucet. This regulation task is handled by the “Nexthink for Service Desk” add-on. This is an in-house development by the German Nexthink Platinum Partner Consulting4IT GmbH, based in Waldbronn.
The add-on ensures that only the information needed by the service desk is displayed. Just like with a faucet, the key is controlling the flow: if too much data is displayed, the service desk agent will literally drown in a flood of information. As a result, they will spend more time searching for the right information than they can save on a single ticket.
User satisfaction as a motivator
“Our main motivation for implementing Client Analytics was to improve user satisfaction,” Thorsten Walther explains. It’s not that there had been a particularly high number of complaints before: “Here in Baden, we also follow the Swabian proverb: ‘No complaints is praise enough.’” With that in mind, the primary metric for measuring success was a decrease in the number of trouble tickets submitted to the service desk.
User satisfaction was also at the top of Hansgrohe management’s agenda. This presented the Service Delivery Team with an opportunity to take concrete action: Seizing the moment, Walther, together with Consulting4IT as the system integrator, implemented the “Nexthink Analytics” solution. Testing of the solution in the production environment began in October 2016.
Compared to other solutions, Nexthink had one key advantage: When clients attempt to connect to central services like SAP, the software collects information not only on successful attempts but also—and this is particularly valuable for support—on failed attempts. “To be honest, we didn’t really look around for a competing product,” Walther admits, “because Nexthink was exactly what we were looking for.”
Quick Holistic Stress ECG
After the solution is rolled out, the “Nexthink Collector”—unnoticed by the user—analyzes system behavior on the client every 30 seconds. “We essentially receive a continuous, rapid, comprehensive performance snapshot of all clients,” as Walther puts it. To do this, the software taps directly into the operating system kernel. It measures, for example, boot times, availability, and performance of the end device, monitors application behavior, and logs network connections—both those successfully established and those that failed.
With this functionality, Nexthink Analytics is ideally suited to support the service desk in troubleshooting. In the area of IT infrastructure, Hansgrohe employs more than 40 staff members worldwide, of whom approximately 17 also work in first-level support.
Walter's team has a solid understanding of the system. The IT service specialists don't just pass a trouble ticket along to someone else. Their goal is to achieve a high first-time resolution rate. In other words, they focus on getting affected employees back to work as quickly as possible and avoiding unnecessary ticket escalations.
However, even a well-trained service desk agent would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data Nexthink provides. With two status checks per minute per device, that adds up to a significant amount within a month. In a pinch, the administrator can access information from the past four weeks in a flash. But that’s of limited use if they need to resolve a current issue as quickly as possible: they still have to sift through the data provided by Nexthink to find the specific information relevant to the individual case—in minutes, if not seconds.
Consequently, Hansgrohe’s IT specialists, in collaboration with Consulting4IT, installed the Nexthink for Service Desk add-on. The implementation partner’s tool can be integrated with virtually any service desk tool and—put simply—ensures that employees see only the specific data they need to resolve or classify a problem and forward it to the right colleague.
No sooner said than done
When a user calls the Hansgrohe Service Desk today, the support representative immediately has access to data tailored to the user’s specific needs. If certain issues recur, this data often contributes directly to finding a solution. This includes, for example, information on how long ago the last reboot took place, or whether there were any critical CPU usage levels on the caller’s computer in recent weeks.
The value of this information quickly becomes clear with an example: Callers often think they shut down their computer the day before, when in fact the laptop has simply been closed for weeks—meaning it has been in standby mode. Not every user knows the difference. As a result, they may be surprised, for example, by a faulty network connection when switching from their home office to the company network.
That’s why the same rule applies today as it did in the past: a reboot is always a good idea. When a support representative sees from the data in Nexthink for Service Desk that the last reboot took place quite some time ago, they recommend restarting the system, saving everyone involved from frustrating and time-consuming discussions. Using a traffic light system, the tool from Consulting4IT displays the criticality of an event on the client as well as its performance. The customer defines the thresholds for the red, yellow, and green statuses themselves, or they can rely on Consulting4IT’s best-practice experience.
The service representative can analyze the values flagged as critical—i.e., red—in more detail on a “health map.” In addition to the traffic light status, the card displays the specific values from the pastfew weeks.In the SAP example described at the beginning, one could not only see how long the service has been down. Rather, unnecessary detours and confusion could be avoided because the traffic light would quickly identify the outage as a performance issue with Internet Explorer.
Long-term analysis of KPIs
Hansgrohe has rolled out Nexthink not only in Germany but also at all its global locations. For the past few months, the Nexthink portal has also been used there for long-term analyses, from which key performance indicators (KPIs) can be derived—essentially serving as metrics for service level agreements (SLAs) between users and the service desk.
As Walther and his team have noted, the first-call resolution rate has improved significantly. This, too, plays a major role in enhancing user satisfaction with the IT system and thus in achieving the project’s original goal.
Klaus Buchholz, Head of IT Infrastructure, comments: “Hansgrohe wants to stay at the forefront of technology, and that’s only possible with satisfied users.” User support was so important to Hansgrohe’s management that—no matter how good they might already be in this area—they were determined to improve even further.
About the Hansgrohe Group
Hansgrohe, the specialist in faucets and showers, is what you might call a company with a long tradition. Founder Hans Grohe started small in 1901 with a metal stamping shop in Schiltach in the Black Forest. Today, however, the Hansgrohe Group—founded by “clever Hans”—enjoys a global reputation with its brands AXOR and hansgrohe: Its products are used and appreciated around the globe. With 34 subsidiaries and 21 sales offices worldwide, Hansgrohe is one of the few global players in the sanitary industry. In the 2017 fiscal year, the company employed approximately 5,000 people and delivered products to over 140 countries.