Creating a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a great way to measure how well your company is meeting the needs of your customers. An SLA sets specific standards for common services, like email response time or uptime of a website. It also helps you identify problem areas that need improvement so you can get back on track. An effective SLA not only improves your customer service but also helps mitigate risk by setting measurable standards for services and expected uptime levels. Read on to discover seven ways to improve your SLA and enhance your business through better customer service measurements.
Measure SLA adherence
The first step in improving your SLA is to measure adherence. You can do this using a metric like the number of failed SLA measurements or the percentage of SLA hours that were not met. When measuring adherence, consider the following: – What metric will you use to determine SLA adherence? – Is this metric easily understood by all stakeholders? – Will this metric provide the necessary data to make improvements?
Create SLA trigger events
Triggers are the events that activate your Service level Agreement SLA in the first place. These can include any recurring issues with the service, such as a specific number of failed email deliveries or a specific uptime percentage (95%, for example). You can also use triggers to mark specific times or date ranges when the SLA is in effect. This is an important aspect of any SLA. Without a trigger event, there is no need for an SLA at all. This can be especially useful for sudden service issues. For example, if your website goes down, you can create an SLA that notifies your customers with a message on the website explaining the outage. This helps you avoid losing customers due to the outage.
Define service levels by department
Not all services are created equal, and not all customers are created equal. This is where you break down service levels by department, such as customer service and sales versus infrastructure. Depending on your industry, you might also want to break down service levels by type of customer. Certain customers, like government or enterprise, might require a higher level of service than a standard customer. This is where you can use the data from previous SLA measurements to determine which service levels need to be adjusted to improve customer satisfaction.
Track more than just uptime and latency
You can use SLAs to measure more than just uptime and latency. In fact, these metrics may not be the best indicators for your specific business. You can use an SLA to track and measure other key performance indicators (KPIs), like response time, throughput, and error rate. If response time is consistently over the expected level, you can use this information to find out why. For example, you can conduct an investigation to find out if the issue is related to your network, a team member who is consistently taking too long to respond to requests, or an issue with the hardware.
Benchmark current SLA against your business goals
Each department in your company can have specific business goals, like increasing the number of sales or improving the retention rate of customers. When designing your new SLA, you can use these business goals to determine the proper service levels. You can also use the goals to determine if the current SLA is not meeting the needs of your customers. This gives you a great way to see if your current SLA is not meeting your business goals. You can also use it to determine if your new SLA is meeting the needs of your customers and if it is able to help you reach your goals.
Identify current problems with your SLA
Use the data from previous SLA measurements to identify current problems with your SLA. This includes tracking the data and making sure you are measuring adherence by using the right metric. You can also use the data to determine if there are any issues with your triggers, such as issues with how the data is being collected. You can also use the data to identify which service levels need improvement. This includes determining if certain service levels are too high or too low.
Wrapping up
Creating an SLA is a great way to improve your customer service. It helps you meet the needs of your customers and mitigate risk. An SLA is also a great tool for improving your internal processes and reaching your business goals. If you follow these seven tips, you will be well on your way to creating a great SLA for your company.
Must Read Topics:
