What is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Chat?

Introduction

A Service level agreement (SLA) is an agreement between the support team and customers regarding the response and resolution times for delivering products or services.

It also provides greater visibility when problems arise and helps set response and resolution times in the chat conversation. Each SLA can be configured to operate either during calendar hours (24* 7) or specific business hours.

In BoldDesk, you can create multiple SLAs and map them to different conversations (refer below), using conditions to define the expectations for each metric target.

Each conversation’s response and resolution time can be configured, and agents are forced to provide a solution on time to fulfill customer expectations.

A good SLA is important because it sets boundaries and expectations for the following aspects:

• Defines clear expectations
• Emphasizes a customer-centric approach
• Sets quantifiable performance benchmarks
• Specifies consequences for missed targets

SLA metric (What will be measured/enforced?)

These predefined metrics help you measure and enforce your support targets:

• First response (Time to first response) – The time taken for an agent to reply to the customer for the first time
• Response (Time to next response) – The time taken for the agent’s follow-up replies after the first response
• Resolution (Time to resolution) – The time taken to fully resolve or close the conversation
  

Operating hours depend on whether the due date is calculated using calendar hours or business hours.

How is the first response time calculated?

The first response time is measured from the moment a customer sends a message until the agent sends the initial reply.This helps track how quickly agents acknowledge new conversations.

To let the customer know their issue is being handled, the agent should send a quick acknowledgment.

You can use this metric to enforce a first response time goal, with a minimum setting of 1 minute.

How is the response time calculated?

Response time is the time it takes for an agent to reply to a customer after the first response has been sent. To ensure timely follow-ups, you can set a minimum interval of 1 minute between responses.

How is the resolution time calculated?

Resolution time is the time an agent takes to solve or close a conversation. Using this, you can enforce the conversation queries to be addressed at a specific time or choose a minimum of 1 day.