End-Customer Portals Transform Performance Visibility and B2B Customer Experience Solution overview

 

Win against the competition and upsell end-customer portal features with customized reporting

Network and service assurance helps you to grow revenue from premium services with strict performance requirements backed by Service-Level Agreement (SLA) guarantees. A feature-rich end-customer portal also helps to differentiate your services portfolio from the competition.

As an example, an EMEA communications service provider is working with its enterprise customers to define premium services supported by strict performance SLAs. The service provider needs to be able to prove that the service is meeting the defined performance targets and for the evidence of this to be transparently available to customers.

End-customer portal requirements

●     Cloud-native and multitenanted

●     Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for user and data segregation and security

●     Single Sign-On (SSO) for smooth integration with existing tools and portals

●     Ability for administrators to create custom dashboards for end users on the fly

●     Multivendor ingestion and reporting of any time-series third-party data

●     Machine learning algorithms to allow predictive analysis and alerting on anomalies

●     Ability to alert end users of potential service degradation

End-customer portals offer transparency and cost savings

An end-customer portal capability is becoming a standard requirement and is no longer a “nice to have” in Requests For Proposal (RFPs) to service providers. A tailored customer portal also enables end customers to self-diagnose network and service issues. This creates an OpEx-saving benefit of reduced support costs, trouble tickets, and call center interactions.

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance has the right feature set to differentiate and upsell end-customer portals

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance enhances the capabilities of end-customer portals

End-customer portals need to come equipped with many technical capabilities in order to be relevant for both service provider and end-customer needs. These include cloud-native designs for scalability and reliability, full role-based access control for data integrity and security, and multivendor support for ubiquitous adoption in target networks. The ability for the service provider to customize aspects of the portal design, branding, and packaging is an essential attribute.

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance (formerly Accedian Skylight) provides the required end-customer portal capabilities and does so in a future-ready and highly scalable manner, which means service provider investments are protected. Provider Connectivity Assurance is a cloud-native, multivendor visualization, reporting, and predictive analytics solution designed to meet the needs of service providers across multiple use cases and network areas.

A minimal footprint microservice or Assurance Sensor runs in the service provider’s and/or end customer’s environment to gather, process, and transfer performance assurance data securely and reliably to the cloud-resident Provider Connectivity Assurance platform. This can be managed either in Cisco’s cloud or in a service provider’s own private cloud.

Provider Connectivity Assurance is a platform that solves multiple use cases in one package— the end-customer portal is just one example. This range of use cases represents potential CapEx savings for the provider and reduces the number of solutions and tools they need to buy.

●     Built-in machine learning technology facilitates predictive analysis of metrics such as bandwidth utilization. This capability also allows proactive alerting and notifications of potential service degradation, based on deviation from normal baseline behavior for selected metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

●     Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) protects data integrity and security and helps ensure that specific users and groups of users see only the information they are supposed to. The service provider will have its own “internal” user groups on the platform, and end customers will also have their own specific user groups with appropriate privileges.

●     Single Sign-On (SSO) provides a seamless user access experience. One of Cisco’s EMEA service provider customers uses SSO to allow its end users to access Provider Connectivity Assurance via an existing portal front end that is also used by the provider for other purposes.

●     Flexible managed service options: The solution can be managed by Cisco, or can be operated by the service provider with standard technical support services provided by Cisco CX. In most cases, the service provider is responsible for the day-to-day administration, for example, adding new end customers and performing service provisioning tasks. The Cisco CX professional services organization can provide additional customizations, such as adding specific third-party data-handling capability, custom branding, dashboards, and metadata schemas.

●     Multiple use cases are supported in addition to end-customer portals, including:

◦    Multivendor SD-WAN reporting and analysis

◦    Network Operations Center (NOC) reporting

◦    Capacity planning

◦    Product upsell with service assurance features

◦    Troubleshooting

Flexible, dynamic, and real-time dashboards can be fully customized by the system administrator to suit each end user’s needs.

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance has the right feature set to differentiate and upsell end-customer portals

Benefits for service providers

●     Boost revenues with a credible upsell opportunity for end customers

●     Differentiate services in an increasingly competitive marketplace

●     Enable communications with end customers around capacity upgrades

●     Improve customer satisfaction and retain customers

●     Save on OpEx and reduce support calls with self-service portals

Benefits for end customers

●     Customized views of network performance to align the reporting KPIs to the customer’s business needs

●     Automated reports with useful insights into network usage and availability

●     Productive communications with service providers around capacity usage and performance

●     Ability to monitor SLAs and have access to the same data and similar views as the provider

Service provider and end customers working together with shared data sets and network, plus service visibility