One of the most important steps in coordinating your sales and marketing efforts is creating a service level agreement (SLA). Traditionally, an SLA is used to define exactly what a customer receives from a service provider. SLAs are also used for internal operations and distribution and marketing agreements are among the most important. This SLA also uses enumeration points to clearly identify its services and promises to customers. Choose measures that motivate good behavior. The first objective of each metric is to motivate the appropriate behavior on behalf of the customer and the service provider. Each part of the relationship will strive to optimize its actions to achieve the performance goals set by the metrics. Focus first on the behavior you want to motivate. Then test your metrics by placing yourself on the other side instead.

How would you optimize your performance? Does this optimization support the initially desired results? However, for critical services, customers should invest in third-party tools to automatically collect SLA performance data that provides an objective measure of performance. “An SLA or service level agreement is a document jointly developed by two or more parties to provide the services provided by a supplier to a customer. A service level agreement (SLA) is a documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that identifies both the services needed and the expected level of service. The agreement varies between suppliers, services and sectors of activity. The SLA is a documented agreement. Let`s see an example of an SLA that you can use as a template to create your own SLAs. Remember that these documents are flexible and unique. If necessary, make changes, as long as you include the relevant parties, in particular the customer. And consider other topics to which you might want to add agreements, such as: an SLA would focus only on performance measurement and quality of service agreed by both parties and can be used as a measuring instrument as part of the contract.

The service levels themselves can be determined based on various factors, for example.B. a service provider can offer its customers online credit checks. A service level in the contract may indicate that the online service must be 99% operational in a given month, or that it must provide the requested information 3 hours after a request, etc. Management elements should include definitions of measurement standards and methods, reporting processes, content and frequency, a dispute resolution procedure, a indemnification clause to protect the customer from third-party disputes in the event of a breach of the level of service (but this should already be covered in the contract) and a mechanism to update the agreement as appropriate. Under what circumstances will your SLA be dismissed? Whether your contract serves one customer or two internal divisions, you`ll usually find that you put the SLA on the hack block if it doesn`t work. Maybe your goals have not been achieved in the last three months or the current agreement simply does not have an agreement from all parties involved. Now that the definition of service level agreements has been well covered, it`s time to focus on the essentials: understanding the effectiveness of creating SLAs. What is an SLA? An SLA is a written agreement between a service provider and a customer. The customer can be internal or external. It doesn`t matter. An SLA has no set length. It can be short, long or something in between.

Some SLAs are as short as a page. Some are a hundred pages long. Define an appropriate baseline. Defining the right metrics is only half the way. To be useful, metrics must be tailored to a reasonable and achievable level of performance. If strong historical measurement data is not available, you should be prepared to check and adjust the parameters later by a predefined process defined in the SLA. A service level agreement (SLA) refers to the expectations negotiated between an internal help desk and its internal customers. . . .