A method, a system, and a computer program product that enables real-time, intelligent quality of service (QoS) for essential services being accessed and/or utilized by a back-office device via a secondary connection to a back-office server running the back-office application/service. A network management device (NMD) executes a QoS utility that responds to a detection of the failure of a primary connection to the back-office server by establishing a secondary connection and providing optimal QoS for the essential services on the secondary connection, in real time.