Observability, in it’s simplest form, is the ability to monitor and gain insights into the behavior of a system. It’s commonly used in fields like software engineering and DevOps to ensure that systems are running smoothly and to diagnose and resolve issues when they occur. Organizations rely on observability to diagnose performance issues and resolve problems before they become more significant.

Observability is based on three main pillars – metrics, logs, and traces – to provide deep visibility into distributed systems and allow teams to get to the root cause of a multitud of issues that may be affecting their operation.

Metrics

Metrics are a numeric value measured over time.

Logs

Logs are a system generated record of data, showing the event that happened at a particular time and includes a timestamp that tells when it occurred.

Traces

Traces represent the end-to-end journey of a transaction within a system. It provides context on why the issue happened in the first place.

When you integrate your metrics, logs, and traces within a single solution, you not only detect when problems occur, but also why those problems are occurring.

Here is a quick video for better understanding:

Implementing Observability for Customer Support Operations

Observability can be easily applied to many industries. In the context of customer support, it helps collect, manage, and analyze data in real time to optimize processes, policies, and tools that will ultimately enhance the overall customer experience.

A solution like this helps leaders see what’s happening inside their support system, making it easier to know if things are going well. This enhanced visibility, leads to quicker problem detection and resolution, as CX leaders can spot anomalies, identify pain points, and evaluate the impact of changes effectively.

However, observability solutions can’t be one-size-fits-all because every company’s needs are different. Each organization will have its distinct approach and specific requirements when applying it.

Here’s a quick example of observability in Customer Experience (CX) Operations.

Think of Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) as your top priority. Observability helps you keep an eye on this metric, but it’s just the start. You’ll also need logs and traces. Logs cover everything in your support operations. The customer interactions, ticket histories, agent responses, and system events. They’re like a real-time alert system. For example, logs can quickly highlight a drop in CSAT scores. But if you want to get to the root of the problem, traces are your go-to. They dig deep to uncover the exact cause of the low CSAT score, which in this example could be related to a system failure.

In essence, observability is all about being able to query your CX Ops Data to learn more about the overall health of your system.