The Roots of Quality of Service in Teleport Operations

 

by Robert Bell
New York City, September 4, 2020--Where does high quality of service come from in a satellite services operation that runs  24x7?  There are obvious factors like the reliability of power and connectivity, provision against disaster like fire suppression and adequate attention to maintenance.  But quality of service is ultimately a product of human ingenuity, and its roots reach into the culture of the organization. 

 

For a recent report on quality of service, the World Teleport Association turned to the consultants and engineers who serve as on-site auditors for its Teleport Certification program.  Certification is based on hundreds of objective, measurable factors – but we thought that it would be illuminating to ask the auditors about the less tangible issues that contribute to the quality customers receive.  Their comments fell into three areas:

• Excellence runs in themes.

• Achieving quality is hard if you fail to address the soft issues.

• Don’t skip the paperwork. 

 

Excellence Runs in Themes

 

One might expect a well-run teleport to have a consistent degree of excellence in facilities, technology and procedures.  Being run by human beings, however, teleports very rarely achieve operational excellence in every area of an audit. It’s much more common to find themes of excellence across specific areas. Even in areas of strength, there are underlying weaknesses that can be improved upon. 

For example, the facility may have fully redundant baseband platforms, but configuration control is poor, so any data loss causes an outage on both primary and secondary transmission chains.  Some teleports install excellent network infrastructure but have inadequate cybersecurity.  Often, teleports install secondary backup generators that will withstand a double failure.  But they may create a hidden weakness by installing it in an enclosure with no automatic fire suppressant.  Finally, business continuity can be an area of weakness, even for strong performing teleports. Covid-19 has reminded us that teleports ignore business continuity at their peril. So, it is useful to think of quality as thematic – based on the likes, dislikes, expertise and experience of staff – and look for aspects that fall outside the favored themes.  

 

Addressing the “Soft Issues”

 

“Soft” issues are the core problem of every business.  Experience shows there is a strong correlation between employee engagement and quality of service.  In other words, motivated teams provide better service. When ordering new services, for example, customers generally want a teleport to respond promptly and deliver a fault-free service.  That requires close collaboration among sales, technical support, engineering and operations. In a communications business, that can be hindered by remote locations and technical challenges, so strong collaboration between teams is essential to overcoming these barriers to quality.  

 

Lack of a strong culture of collaboration will show itself most often in the time it takes to resolve issues.  If the different teams at the teleport are used to working together, they can move fast, identify the right team or department to own the problem and ensure it is solved.  If communication between teams is not habitual, no set of procedures will provide a smooth resolution. 

Management culture is the ultimate success factor.  If management does not provide teams with the right tools – for example, effective monitoring equipment – the quality of teleport operations will suffer.  Effective leadership is essential for providing support, direction and guidance to the teams who are delivering for customers.

 

In the best performing teleports, people are happy and willing to go the extra mile, to keep persevering with a tricky customer issue or technical problem. Often employees freely give this discretionary effort because they feel valued as part of a high-performing team devoted to helping customers. This is what creates a culture of continuous improvement, which leads to a virtuous circle of better performance, leading to higher motivation, leading to highly engaged customers.  

 

Don’t Skip the Paperwork

 

Quality of service requires a commitment to continuous improvement: finding the root cause of issues so they can be permanently fixed. When a service outage occurs due to inadequate project controls, for example, improving the project process should be a priority. 

Highly rated teleports have mature and documented processes in place that define how equipment and systems should be operated and maintained.  Processes also define how teams should work together to successfully deliver services.  Just as important as having these processes is reviewing and updating them regularly.  

 

If processes are in a poor state, equipment may not be effectively managed or maintained properly and teams’ actions may not be coordinated. For example, the teleport may introduce a new service without allowing time for adequate testing before startup.  This could mean that equipment is not properly configured, which results in a failure and an extended service outage.

 

The best-performing teleports have documentation covering key activities to ensure repeatability and reliability.  They follow a regular schedule in reviewing and updating them as required.  They are diligent about maintaining records of system configurations to avoid the risk of configuration data being lost.  High performers also stay informed about changing technologies that can improve operations or customer service.  They have a proactive technology planning process that keeps them from being left behind.  

 

In weaker operations, you find a laissez faire attitude to change management and root cause analysis.  Outages might be ‘explained away’ without solid measures being put in place to avoid a recurrence.  Things are taken for granted, such as fire safety and first aid, because “that’s the way we have been doing it for years.” 

 

Fixing a Bad Dog

 

When the family dog behaves in ways that cause grief, smart owners turn to expert trainers to guide their pets’ behavior into a better path.  What they seldom realize is that the trainer’s expertise is less about making a better dog than it is about making a better owner.  The trainer works to equip the owner with new and better habits, and these gradually transform Fido’s behavior.  

The same principal applies to quality of service at a teleport.  Hundreds of specific bits of infrastructure, hardware and software contribute to it.  Painstakingly documented procedures support it and make possible its continuous improvement.  But ultimately, QOS is the product of the entire organization, from management to the person who answers the customer calls in the NOC.  WTA’s Certification program measures and evaluates the details – more than 170 in all – that contribute to quality of service, but the experience of the onsite auditors reveals the power of company culture to drive high performance.