Offering clients not only the best security advice but also first-class customer service is central to our mission at Redscan.
This commitment is highlighted by the results of our most recent customer survey, in which our company’s Net Promoter Score was distinguished as ‘great’ (63).
We asked Ashleigh Farrand, our Head of Service Operations, to outline what’s involved in delivering a great customer experience and to tell us why she enjoys working in cyber security.
Can you briefly outline your role?
My team and I take ownership for ensuring the consistency and quality of our ThreatDetect MDR service. We do this by making sure that, as a company, we’re handling day-to-day issues effectively and consistently meeting service levels for incident analysis and reporting. We also look at ways to continuously improve our internal processes and workflows to provide a better overall service to clients.
Why is Service Operations important?
As a cyber security service provider, our view is that the technical side and the service side of cyber security should work hand in hand.
Having clear processes in place helps everything to run smoothly and efficiently and enables us to deliver the best outcomes to our customers. That involves making sure incident tickets and service requests are being handled in the right way and that we’re constantly communicating with our clients to ensure that they have the security insight they need to better understand and rapidly respond to the latest threats.
How does the Service Operations team support Redscan’s customers?
Our main focus is on dealing with incoming requests, such as clients asking questions about the service they receive and requesting adjustments in response to system or infrastructure changes. Our role is to make sure those requests are handled swiftly and effectively. Customers benefit from the peace of mind of knowing we’re moving quickly to help keep them secure.
With the recent shifts in working practices, there have been a lot of changes in attacker tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and being able to alert our customers to these is really important. Many of our customers are moving from on-premise environments to cloud environments and it’s really important they are able to keep up to date with the changes they’re making. The threat landscape is evolving quickly and customers need to know that we have them covered.
“Our role is to make sure requests are handled swiftly and effectively. Customers benefit from the peace of mind of knowing we’re moving quickly to help keep them secure.”
How does Service Operations work with other Redscan divisions across the business?
We liaise closely with our team of Technical Account Managers who are the key nominated points of contact for our clients. We also have a high level of involvement with the Engineering team because they are responsible for actioning the majority of client requests that we receive.
How do you identify service improvements?
We work in partnership with our customers and develop a deep understanding of their needs. When we experience issues or observe particularly serious threat activity affecting one or some of our clients, we ensure that this insight is captured and applied to strengthen the security posture of our whole customer-base.
We’re always looking to learn lessons from past activity and apply them going forward. This involves us closely analysing service metrics to identify how things can be done more quickly and effectively. Internally, our focus is on driving improvements and reviewing our processes so that everything is functioning optimally.
“We’re always looking to learn lessons from past activity and apply them going forward. This involves us closely analysing service metrics to identify how things can be done more quickly and effectively.”
What do you find most rewarding about your role?
I think what’s most rewarding is when we achieve positive outcomes for our clients because of the time and effort we’ve put in. Following disclosure of the recent Microsoft Exchange vulnerability, for example, we’ve spent a lot of time putting detections in place to help identify whether any of our clients were at risk and enabling them to take action to mitigate the risks associated with it.
It’s really rewarding to go above and beyond to improve security outcomes for our clients in these kinds of ways. Being faced with problems and coming up with solutions is one of the many aspects of my job that I really enjoy.
Tell us about your career path into this role.
My first job was on an IT service desk. What I enjoyed most about that was dealing with the more urgent or high priority issues which were having the most impact on customers and being able to manage those effectively and drive them forwards. This led me into a Major Incident Management role with BT where I gained experience in service management, problem management and change management. I then moved to Capita IT Enterprise Services as Major Incident Manager.
In 2019, I joined Redscan as a Service Delivery Manager. My experience in major incident management lent itself very naturally to a service operations role covering quality and improvements. I’ve built on the foundations that I helped to establish in that role in my position as Head of Service Operations.
Do you have any advice for people wanting to work in this area of cyber security?
The important thing is to have a passion for cyber security. This isn’t a nine to five industry. It’s one where you need to constantly learn and improve your skills, so you’ve got to be the type of person who thrives on that.
In cyber security, the client-facing side is just as important as the technical side. It’s important that clients fully understand the importance of good security practices, the risks they face and the protections they should have in place. I would say to anyone looking to go into service management, don’t be discouraged by the fact it seems highly specialised. There’s a lot of room for people with service management or client-facing skills to thrive in this environment.
Check out our latest career opportunities