Once a problem transaction has been identified, you will need as much information as possible to ensure speedy resolution. The monitoring instance needs to understand the detail of each step, the expected inputs and outputs and the relevance of the steps and their sequence to the overall transaction. Drill-down functionality is required to view the detail of a processing failure and manual intervention must be supported and triggered automatically, where appropriate.

Speedy, effective resolution is what makes your Customer Service better than your competitors’. Sometimes the underlying cause is of a technical nature – something is broken and needs fixing, fast. Another time, you are faced with mismatching or simply bad data. Maybe the issue is caused simply by the out-of-sequence processing of a sub-transaction, say in a back-office system. Whatever the cause, you need reliable identification of the problem and help in getting it fixed. That help might involve the creation of a workflow instance for manual intervention, correction of bad data using agreed business rules or simply the recognition that disparate IT transactions are part of a single business transaction.

And when the problem transactions have been identified, the underlying causes have been found and the steps have been taken to ensure the speedy and effective resolution that your customers have come to expect of you, you will probably want detailed Resolution Reports to demonstrate to your customers that – once again – you and your team have provided first class service in line with the agreed KPIs.