Service Level Agreement (SLA)

What is a Service Level Agreement?

A service level agreement (SLA) is a contract between a service provider and customer that defines what level of service must be provided at all times. SLAs typically cover the quality of service, availability, and provider responsibilities. In customer support, an SLA defines how fast a provider must respond to a customer’s service request. This is where SLA meaning in customer service becomes crucial, as it ensures that expectations for both sides are clearly defined.

Example of a Service Level Agreement

Service level agreements can cover and define various internal goals and metrics that need to be met. For instance, one team goal could be a response time commitment. For example, a service level agreement might state that the software provider’s service desk must answer customer queries from email, live chat, and phone within one business hour. This also applies to live chat SLA, ensuring timely responses to customer interactions through chat. If this goal is not met, the customer has the right to request reimbursement.

What Happens if the SLA is Not Met?

Typically, SLAs include predefined penalties that can be enforced if the service provider does not meet the terms of service. These penalties are often handled via credits that are equal to a certain percentage of the vendor’s monthly profit made from the customer’s account. If the goal is not met, the customer has the right to reimbursement in the form of credit, which can be applied to future monthly subscription charges. Understanding SLA compliance meaning helps service providers ensure they avoid penalties and meet their agreed-upon commitments.

Why Are SLAs Important and Why Should I Use One?

SLAs are important because they define clear customer expectations and provider responsibilities. If they are not met, each party knows the consequences. This ensures that if problems arise, no party pleads ignorance and tries to excuse their behavior.

SLAs are also beneficial to use because they hold your employees accountable and keep efficiency and productivity high. If there are no agreements or performance goals in place, employees can get “lazy” and assume a mindset that everything will get done eventually. This can create a build-up of support tickets, fuel customer frustration, and hurt your business. If your customers are unsatisfied with the service you provide, it’s likely that they’ll churn and take their business elsewhere.

Thus, if you want to provide excellent service and uphold business goals and solution times, you should look into adding a service management software into your arsenal of tools.

How Do SLAs Work in LiveAgent?

It depends on the types of SLA features and levels you create. For example, if you create an SLA level that requires the ‘First Answer" due within one hour, then tickets tied to this SLA must be answered within that timeframe during business hours. This call center SLA feature ensures that teams are always on top of customer requests, and their response times are consistent with service standards.

What Are SLA Levels?

SLA levels define the SLA response times that your support agents need to meet. Please note that when you’re creating your SLA levels in the LiveAgent help desk software, you can define your business hours to exclude holidays or weekends. This helps to manage what is SLA in a call center, making sure that calls are answered in a timely manner, and setting clear standards for customer service teams.

SLA Level Answer Types:

• First answer (for new tickets)
• Second answer (for second and all following answers)
• Chat answer
• Call answer

What Are SLA Rules?

SLA rules are automation rules that are executed when certain conditions are met. These rules can streamline agent workflow and override other existing rules if needed.

List of Conditions for SLA Rules:

• Ticket source
• Ticket status
• Ticket created (date)
• Ticket changed (date)
• Ticket deleted
• Ticket start referrer URL
• Ticket priority
• Last message
• Assigned agent status
• Custom fields
• Ticket department
• Ticket assigned to
• Customer Group
• Created from invitation
• Ticket tags

List of SLA Rule Actions:

• Change SLA Level
• Stop other rules

SLA rules can also be combined with automation rules to escalate tickets that are not marked as new.

How to Set Up Service Level Management in LiveAgent

Follow these steps to start managing SLAs in LiveAgent:

1. Log into LiveAgent
2. Click on Configuration (cogwheel icon in the navigation bar)
3. Click on Automation
4. Click on SLA
5. Click on the orange Create Level button
6. Give the level a unique name such as Urgent SLA
7. Check the First Answer checkbox and set it to 1 hour
8. Check the Next Answer checkbox and set it to 30 minutes
9. Click Save and close the window
10. Click on the orange Create Rule button
11. Check the Status Active checkbox
12. Give the rule a unique name such as Assign tag URGENT
13. Click on Add Condition group and set it to IF ticket tags contain URGENT
14. Set the perform action as change SLA level and set it to Urgent SLA
15. Click on Save and close the window

SLA Compliance Reports

LiveAgent offers detailed SLA compliance reports that show all fulfilled and missed SLAs across departments and specific timeframes. These reports help support managers track team performance and ensure that SLAs are met, enhancing productivity. If you’re unsure about SLA definition, it essentially refers to the formalized expectations between service providers and customers about service quality.

In LiveAgent’s customer ticketing software, you can find all SLA compliance reports and export them into CSV files. This makes it easier to share the information with higher management.

SLA Compliance Report Display Options (Columns):

• Date
• Fulfilled
• Avg. time – Fulfilled
• Max. time – Fulfilled
• Min. time – Fulfilled
• Missed
• Avg. time – Missed
• Max. time – Missed
• Min. time – Missed

Want to Use SLA Compliance Report with API?

Use the LiveAgent REST API guide for call values from SLA compliance reports.

SLA Log Reports

Apart from SLA compliance reports, LiveAgent also keeps logs of all fulfilled and missed SLAs. The logs can be filtered by departments and by a specific time range. Individual entries can be sorted by the requester, ticket ID, SLA start time, department, agent, due date, close date, and SLA remaining/overdue time. All SLA logs can be exported into a CSV file as well.

SLA Log Report Display Options (Columns):

• Requester
• Ticket
• Department
• Agent
• Level
• SLA started
• Due date
• Closed

Want to Use SLA Log Reports with API?

Use the LiveAgent REST API guide to call values from the SLA log report.

SLA Setup Video Tutorial

Knowledge Base Resources

Need more help with SLA management? Check out these detailed guides:

• Service-level-agreements (explanation, use cases, set up guide)
• How to set up SLA in LiveAgent
• SLA violation
• Webinar: Email, Automation, SLA

Want to manage SLAs with ease?

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