“Welcome to my parlour” said the spider to the…ant.

It’s the ubiquitous cry of the frustrated Customer Service Rep.; “The system is down”. Uttered whenever the usual clicks of the mouse and taps on the keyboard don’t give the expected results.

It has become so frequent that when a person hears it they become numb because they know that this brick wall will stop any further progress with their particular issue. The problem here is that it seems people have forgotten exactly what a system is. It’s not just the computer sitting on the desk or the server in the back room. It’s the people, resources and processes which come together to give a required result. Each entity taking something in, contributing in its own way, and passing it on until the final outcome is achieved. The proliferation of technology has led people astray. They have forgotten what comprises the fundamental elements of a system and have instead resigned to the idea that technology is the be all and end all.

A system may depend on your computer to get a particular task done, however when the computer is down the system itself should continue to function. When a customer is on the line who needs to get his business done, he shouldn’t be left without options simply because a server isn’t responding. The system needs to mitigate downtime by providing alternative routes for information flow and transaction processing.

How else can a CSR get the information that this customer needs? Can data be captured via more low tech means and then batch processed when the computers are back online? These are questions that should always be asked from the initial design phases of any system. The possibilities are dictated by your particular situation, but alternative processes should always be hard coded into any system and persons proactive with their use.

We need to have a clear separation between the system and the technology that sits below it. Technology should be an enabler for efficient delivery of your service, but it cannot be the show stopper. We have to move away from the chain design concept where a broken link renders everything else inoperable. We have to employ a methodology of ensuring communication flow regardless of the lack of availability of any single resource. That is the core of an efficient system; fault tolerance. Being able to reroute information the moment a resource is unavailable and remain operational. Before there were computers this was the norm. No one person had the combination to the safe. There was always a backup for the backup for the backup.
We have to, while still ensuring a measure of control, enable fault tolerance in our online systems the way we used to when they were driven by pen and paper. A full appreciation needs to be had by everyone involved that regardless of the circumstances the show must go on, and it has to be reflected in the polices and procedures that guide your business processes. When that happens, we’ll be that much closer to dumping the “system is down” cliche and moving on productively with our lives.