What Even Are SLAs?
Super Logistical Advantages? Silly Library Antics? Service Level Agreements?
If you guessed the last one, you are correct! SLAs are Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and are exactly that, agreements or contracts based off of different service levels. SLAs are helpful across many industries, however for this article we will be focusing on what they mean in terms of Customer Support.
What Do SLAs Look Like?
SLAs can include, but are not limited to, the following details:
- Service Scope - the services that are in and out of scope for whatever the contract covers
- Performance targets - i.e. response times, uptime, etc.
- Clearly defined roles - i.e. customer does X, company does Y
- Escalation procedure - if an SLA is broken, or something critical comes up, do you just wait in the chat queue? Or is there a more defined and alternative escalation procedure for emergencies or SAL breaches?
- Reviews - this can include a Retro or Retrospective to review any incidents, issues or SLA breaches to learn from it and create better processes/action steps to move forward.
What is an Example of an SLA?
In Customer Support, there are lots of examples of SLAs. Some of the more common ones are things like:
- Initial response time is less than 24 hours.
- Resolution time is less than 3 business days.
- Follow up responses are less than 12 hours.
These can also vary if your business has different tiers. For example:
- For top tier customers, initial response time is 6 hours.
- For mid tier, initial response is 12 hours.
- For lower tier, initial response is 24 hours.
However, this doesn’t mean lower responses don’t get any answers at all. This is where combining SLAs with priority levels can really come in handy. Check out my previous article about Priorities here for more on this.
Why Do You Need SLAs?
SLAs are an important part of a business/client relationship for many different reasons. They act as a shooting star for the relationship as well as help enforce accountability to both sides by ensuring that businesses follow their promises and the customer knows what these promises are. They build transparency, trust and respect when they are followed and used correctly. Without them, there are no clear guidelines, no promises and nothing to keep the companies accountable to any sort of standard.
Imagine a company that has a customer support department and has offerings for email, chat and phone. You can contact them 3 different ways, that’s great! But what if they don’t have any SLAs and have no standards or agreements to abide to? This means you could be waiting days, weeks or even months before a response occurs. Or, they may not have any desire to actually provide you with a resolution! What a horrible customer experience that would be, and what a mess it would be to work there internally.
On the flip side, imagine another company that also has email, chat and phone support offerings. Still 3 ways to get in touch with them, so that is great, but in addition to that, they have SLAs that include:
- Initial response time is 6 hours or less for for email, 5 minutes or less for chat and 1 minute or less for phone calls.
- Guaranteed resolution or alternative solution within 48 hours of the initial reach out.
Wow! I don’t know about you, but if the two companies above sold the same product or service, I would be going to the second one as they are making it crystal clear what to expect from them, how long things take and what they can promise. Working there must be a lot less stressful too as all employees would know these guidelines and aim to meet them day in and day out.
Final Thoughts on SLAs
SLAs are a key aspect of many business, but especially for customer support. Without them, there would be a lot more chaos, a lot less trust and a lot less transparency between the business and the customer. They are particularly helpful for companies that may deal with different tiers of clients as you can assign different SLAs to each tier to better manage expectations. All in all, SLAs should be a non-negotiable for customer support, does your company have them? If so, well done! If not, I challenge you to ask why and see if this is something you can implement to enjoy all the benefits that SLAs can offer.
