Ch-Ch-Changes: A New Approach to Change Management

For our NWG Manage customers, we recently made some updates to how we handle change requests, separating them from other types of support requests. We also made it easier for customers to tell us how urgent their request is, and added a few new fields to our non-emergency change forms. 

We made these changes for a couple of reasons: 

• It allows customers to get info submitted faster when there’s an emergency.
• It allows our team to better triage tickets and ensure we’re prioritizing reliability over pure speed of response when it’s not an emergency.
• It allows both customers and engineers to minimize back-and-forth communication so we can get to work quickly.

In this blog post, we’ll give you a peek behind the curtain of what’s new, how we arrived at these changes, and the benefits we expect, both for our team and our customers. 

What We Learned (And What We Improved)

We’re always looking for ways to improve, and we knew we could bring more efficiency and consistency to our service delivery. 

Our commitment to partnership and collaboration with our customers influences everything we do, and the development of this new process was no different. We interviewed multiple customers about our old process and asked for feedback and suggestions on the new one. As a direct result of what they shared, we made some fundamental changes to the ticketing system. 

Lightening the Cognitive Load

We heard in several conversations that the first thing customers think about when submitting a request is how quickly it needs to be resolved, and that we could lighten the cognitive load for them by letting them answer that question right away. That’s why with the new process, we now start by asking whether the request is an emergency or non-emergency.

Reducing Back-and-Forth Emails

We also talked to our engineers and took a look at where the old process caused friction for them and our customers. We identified some of the most common pieces of information that we found ourselves having to collect through back-and-forth emails with the person who had submitted the ticket, and made those fields required. Because we’re now requesting this key information up front, our team can start more quickly, work more efficiently and reliably finish implementation on the right timeline. 

Making the Process Consistent

The engineers also noted that as individuals, their approach to handling each ticket was not always the same. The end goal would always be successful implementation, but the route there was not necessarily uniform from one engineer to another. No matter which engineer on our team is assigned to a ticket, we want the change request experience to be smooth and consistent for every customer. 

One of the steps we took to ensure this was building in certain requirements for every stage of the process. For example, in the planning stage, the assigned engineer has to develop and include an implementation plan and a backup plan before moving the ticket to peer review. A request cannot move from one stage to the next without fulfilling all requirements, and as they do, the customer is updated automatically. 

A Glimpse into the New Process

If you’re a customer submitting a request, here’s how the new process will look:

1. First, you’ll indicate whether it’s an emergency or non-emergency, depending on how quickly you need a response. 
2. Next, you'll choose to either report an issue, request a change, or — if it’s a non-emergency — submit a general question. 
3. For change requests, you'll specify the type of change, such as a firewall security policy change. 
4. Non-emergency change requests now require a deadline date instead of a response priority, helping us schedule the work based on when it’s needed. For issues and questions, you’ll still select a response priority, though the fastest available for non-emergencies is a 2-business-hour response.

As we receive the requests, they’ll enter our workflow that involves specific steps taken by our engineers to process, plan for and implement your requested change. 

For example, with every ticket, our team conducts a peer review. We do this to ensure quality, accuracy and security in the work being done. Peer reviews help catch errors, identify potential risks and validate that the solution aligns with best practices and organizational standards. They also promote knowledge sharing among the team and encourage accountability, reducing the chance of oversight and improving overall reliability of the work delivered. 

As a request moves through the different stages from start to finish, you’ll receive automated email updates to keep you informed and be encouraged to test before we close the ticket.

Results and Moving Forward

Internally, we’ve already seen the benefits as our engineers have been able to triage requests more easily, aligning urgency with team capacity; minimize delays due to incomplete information; and create a smoother experience for everyone involved. As we’ve shared the new process with customers, we’ve heard that it’s more intuitive, easier to use, and feels familiar since it’s similar to the ways they prioritize support requests within their own systems. One of our customers even told us he’s looking forward to having an emergency! 

If anything feels unclear, we have a guide in Zendesk to help. And as always, customers are welcome to call our support line directly at 734-827-1400 (option 3) or email us at support@networksgroup.com. We look forward to hearing more feedback and welcome any additional thoughts on how we can continue to make our support experience as smooth as possible!

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Published By: Brian Marsh, Managed Security Services Team Lead, and Collin Coe, Customer Experience Associate

Publish Date: August 14, 2025

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Image by CS Photo