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Log4Shell – a non tech overview

LOG4J

What even is LOG4J ? Simply put, it is software that used for logging.  It is widely used within various systems both internal and external to many networks.  A recently discovered vulnerability has allowed this to be exploited and used for malicious purposes.  It is actively being exploited.

How serious is this and who does it affect?  From the SMB market to the big cloud service players, IT resources will be working around the clock this 2021/2022 holiday to patch and protect systems.  These systems may include an internal WIFI systems such as Ubiquity, a simple server sitting in your office running VMware or many of your favorite SaaS applications on the Internet.

Well that’s not good – what now??  No its not!  As a user, there’s not much you can do other than to contact the various vendors who manage these Saas applications to understand if they have been affected either directly or indirectly by this vulnerability.  The best thing cloud services can do is to update Log4J. But for any internal systems, it’s often not that simple as this Log4J may be “baked in” to the specific version of the software. SolutionSimple has been running various scans to locate this vulnerability within our client’s internal environment.  In addition, we have been working with our clients to gather and obtain statements from various Saas and Hardware vendors.   Many vendors have already released updates and many more vendors will be releasing updates shortly.  Stay Safe and Happy Holidays!

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Beyond the SLA – the customer experience

Being in business since 2006, the gold standard to measure performance has always been the “SLA”, or service level agreement. Depending on various items including the agreement in place, the user, and whether the service is mission critical or not, there would be a corresponding service level agreement. These service level agreements were usually measured in terms of response time. For example, respond by 9AM, plan by 9:30AM, resolve by 10AM. In sum , a ticket resolved by 10AM was job well done – 100%. Who says our job was done 100%? An enterprise CRM that calculates times based off of ticket status? Times are changing in IT. Although these SLAs are still measured, there is something else that matters as much, if not more, the customer experience.

To elaborate, customer experience may be described as how customers feel about the service and support your IT organization provides. In other words, simply responding to or fixing someone’s issue is not enough. While this can definitely be relative to the speed of resolution, various non-quantitative factors come into play. This may include service desk agent aptitude and attitude, to the quality of the resolution.

Think of users who contact the IT help desk as customers. In the outsourced arena, users requesting support are usually customers, however within internal IT departments, that is often not the case. Treat each support request as a paying customer.

All support reps should be instructed to never be defensive, just apologize on behalf of the IT dept for any issues. Remember customer service is the goal!

Some other items that all IT departments can do to promote customer experience is to complement the most technical individuals and teams with those that have more customer relationship manners. Another change of pace for most IT departments is to encourage and welcome suggestions on how IT support can be improved.

It is definitely a work in progress, however it is time IT departments start surprising people and providing some good customer service!

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White glove IT Service versus Self-Service IT – should IT do it for you or should they teach?

72% of customers prefer to use self-service support rather than phone or email support, according to Forrester.  Like any service industry, IT serves customers and companies with different and distinct needs. Often organizations utilize some sort of a IT help-desk model that meets the needs of the majority of people within that organization. Support requests for password resets and other repetitive tasks are submitted via email, phone in-person and manually performed by a support rep.

There are always special circumstances or people that may require additional support resources. This may be a CEO that requires full-service or “whiteglove” support. It can also be a team or a group of users that require near instant support to perform their job more efficiently.

Although there are always users and scenarios where, training, hand-holding or white glove support is needed, empowering users how to be self sufficient is just as important. For example, the use of technology can empower users to perform repetitive tasks such as password reset on their own. There are a myriad of benefits to self-service IT. These potentially include costs savings and efficiency. For example, self service password resets allows end users to minimize downtime and get back to work right away. This also frees up the support staff from repetitive tasks to focus on customer service.