What is Quality of Service (QoS)? And why is it essential in service teams?

Imagine you’re in an important Zoom call, one where you’re giving a presentation you’ve been working on all week. But suddenly, as you’re speaking, you notice the screen keeps freezing. People start to ask you to repeat yourself, and you feel a tang of guilt and embarrassment as you’re trying to speak, but the audio keeps cutting in and out. You feel powerless.

Nearly everyone who uses the internet has experienced this in some way, whether it’s a glitchy video call, slow-loading apps, or downloads taking forever to finish. In today’s world, we all rely on effective network connection for our everyday activities. Stable access to digital tools isn’t just a convenience—but a necessity for businesses to run smoothly.

Behind the scenes, network providers and service teams work to prevent these issues by controlling internet traffic and ensuring applications get the bandwidth they need to run smoothly. They do this through a process known as Quality of Service (QoS).

In this blog post, we’ll explore exactly what QoS is, why it’s so important for business operations to run effectively, and the different ways to measure and track it. Plus, we’ll introduce monday service as an intuitive solution for service management teams to monitor and optimize QoS for long-term success.

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What is QoS

Put simply, Quality of Service (QoS) is the technology used to manage, prioritize, and optimize network traffic to ensure critical applications get the proper bandwidth to perform. It refers to the behind-the-scenes mechanisms that allow online applications and services to run smoothly. This high-level, technical concept is familiar among network providers and IT teams as a key factor in maintaining reliable performance.

QOS enable organizations to prioritize traffic for efficient and reliable network performance. 

QoS is crucial because network capacity is a limited resource, and in order for business-critical applications to work efficiently, data transmission must be controlled.

How does QoS work?

So how do QoS technologies work to prioritize data? We’ll break it down in a few easy steps.

• 1.  All data transmitted through a network is formatted into data packets
• 2. QoS technology classifies packets depending on the information in the packet header, defining the type of service (ex: video, email, software download)
• 3. Classified packets receive a priority tag based on predefined rules (ex: business-critical meeting applications receive a high priority tag while large file downloads receive a less urgent priority tag)
• 4. Based on marked priority, the data packages are placed in a corresponding queue for different types of traffic —  ensuring high-priority traffic gets handled first for the strategic allocation of network bandwidth.
• 5. To ensure heavy data doesn’t clog and overwhelm a network, QOS technology can also be configured to limit the bandwidth used for one data packet at a time.

What’s the purpose of QoS? 

So, what exactly does QoS do for network administrators and service-related businesses? In a nutshell, QoS helps to intelligently manage network traffic and prioritize data. Businesses use it to:

1. Guarantee high functionality for critical applications. With QoS practices in place, teams can rest assured that their essential apps will receive first priority and, therefore, consistently work.  Any additional uses of the network won’t interfere with essential app performance.
2. Prevent data loss. A data packet (piece of data being sent) may get lost in transit in the case of excessive network congestion. QoS works to minimize network congestion, thus reducing packet loss in network devices.
3. Optimize  bandwidth resources. QoS technologies ensure that limited bandwidth resources are used as efficiently as possible, giving high-priority applications more bandwidth and limiting non-essential traffic.
4. Reduce delays & lag. By managing traffic for a smooth data flow, QoS processes ensure real-time applications aren’t constantly lagging

Image credit: Paloaltonetworks

Image credit: Paloaltonetworks

Why QOS is important for IT and service management teams

In our hyper-connected world, with businesses depending on a growing number of applications and services for daily functionality,  QoS is more vital than ever. Specifically for service teams working to provide high-functioning technological services, QoS is fundamental to a business’s reliability, efficiency, consistency, and even reputation. The main benefits of QoS include:

• Enhanced user experience. At its core, QoS aims to maximize network performance so users can have a seamless, reliable experience with their online applications and services. So it’s inevitable that with QoS systems in place, customers will be happier and more likely to trust the service provider they’re working with.
• Strategic resource management. QoS requires teams to consider the best use of their bandwidth for optimal performance. Since this resource is constantly monitored to be utilized to its peak, this leads to lower operational costs spent on additional network infrastructure.
• Minimized downtime and faster issue resolution. Service management teams suffer greatly when network issues impact their ability to do their jobs. With QoS practices in place, downtime will be slower as critical apps for interacting with customers are prioritized.

How is QoS measured? 

One of the great advantages of QoS is that it’s quantifiable. Specific metrics allow organizations to evaluate how well their QoS implementation is performing while identifying areas for improvement.

Plus, for many service management teams, QoS is a key component in an SLA (service level agreement). These agreements often define expected QoS standards through these 4 trackable metrics.

Image credit: forinet.com

• Bandwidth usage 
  • What it measures? How much bandwidth is available for use and how much of that space is allocated to each service/ app.
  • Why It’s used? Tracking this metric ensures bandwidth resources are being optimized.
• Latency (delay time)
  • What it measures?  The amount of time it takes in milliseconds for a data packet to travel from the sender to the receiver.
  • Why it’s used? Low latency indicates fast response times, while high latency indicates slow performance and poor customer experience.
• Jitter
  • What it measures? the variance/ inconsistencies in latency or speed at which data packets are received. This metric is also known as packet delay variation (PDV) as it indicates how often packets are delayed or received out of order.
  • Why it’s used? High levels of jitter indicate that data packets are being sent out of order and low jitter levels indicate the smooth flow of data.
• Packet loss
  • What it measures? The percentage of data that never reaches the destination
  • Why It’s used? A high percentage of packet loss can signify serious issues like failed transactions or ignored service interactions. The goal is for this number to be as small as possible, which indicates a vast majority of data reaches its destination.

The key to stable QoS is to track these metrics in real-time, so organizations know precisely where they stand. This is where a service management tool like monday service is crucial — because it allows you to effectively monitor quality of service metrics to ensure the best customer experience possible.

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Using monday service to track and measure QoS

Without software to track and monitor QoS metrics, an organization’s effort to implement QoS can be virtually ineffective — which is why IT/ service management organizations need a flexible platform that can visualize, report on, and collaborate on QoS-related issues.

Enter monday service, an intuitive platform that empowers any team to deliver efficient service at scale with the power of AI. Some of the key features that teams can use to effectively implement QoS into their organization are:

Real-time service analytics 

Gain clear QoS performance visibility and insights by tracking metrics in real-time. Create a QoS monitoring board to spot important trends and detect issues before they become too significant.

Data visualizations

Visualize QoS metrics through customizable dashboards so analytics are accessible and transparent to anyone who needs to see them. Clear, visual dashboards ensure teams can interpret performance trends and make informed decisions.

AI powered automations  

Set automations to handle QoS related issues, accelerating resolution times. For example with the click of a button, configure an automation that ensures the right person is notified when there’s a specific issue with a QoS metric such as a sudden spike in latency.

Seamless collaboration capabilities 

Ensure relevant stakeholders can communicate, collaborate, and track QoS data in one central location. Keep all QoS-related discussions, updates, and historical reports in a shared workspace to improve efficiency and ensure everyone is on the same page.

The future of QoS using service management AI tools

The 2025 world of work report by monday.com revealed that a striking 86% of IT professionals leverage AI for things like for automation, security, and data management. 

AI-powered service management tools are expected to continue growing, transforming how organizations track and optimize network performance

Maintaining a top-notch quality of service can be simple. With a platform like monday service companies can benefit from AI  technology to make service management smarter, faster, and more reliable. Try it for yourself with a 14-day trial today. 

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