SLA, To have its definition
WHAT exactly is SLA? I just question myself when I have worked on the customer support field for 5 years. This start my searching and reading again on how to define the SLA terms.
SLA or Service Level Agreements were first developed for in-company service providers (the pioneers were the Computing Service). External services are usually dealt with by contracts, which may specify service level requirements. However, many contracts for external services are vague in service definition and quality and in these cases a Service Level Agreement may supplement (and form part of) a contract.
A Service Level Agreement, is simply:
"an agreement between the service provider and its customers quantifying the Minimum acceptable service to the customer"
Each of those words is important. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) takes the form 'if you do this, then I will be able to do that, and this will be the cost'. It has to be negotiated and agreed. Agreement is two-way. It depends on the customer providing accurate utilisation and volume forecasts (perhaps not exceeding 'n' transactions per hour) and in the customer meeting deadlines (say for providing a consistent volume of work to the service provider, or for not exceeding a peak demand limit). As with any negotiation each side will start out with an opening position. This position will be modified as negotiations continue, to take account of practical difficulty and cost. This negotiation should not be some sort of duel between the service professional and the customer: it should be a joint exploration of what is in the best interests of the customer's business. For in-company service providers it is also their business.
Quantifying the service is vital. There is an old saying 'what can't be measured doesn't exist'. Quantification of various aspects of the service will place assessment of its quality on an objective basis and get away from these vague, emotive words like 'slow' and 'poor'.
The service specification should be the minimum service level acceptable as meeting the customer requirement. The end customer or end customers' requirement will be examined to establish what the benefits of various levels of service are and what level is cost justified. There is probably no benefit in over-providing quality: it just costs more money. Over provision of quality - for instance by providing a one-hour turn-round when there is spare capacity - may just raise expectations to a level which becomes 4
unsupportable later when the workload increases and that initial quality cannot be maintained. The service has to be fully adequate but it needs to be more than that. However, the quality must also be consistent since the customer equates inconsistent quality to poor quality.
The definition of minimum (that is, adequate) has to be explored. The traffic light model of service and value may help in this process. This model identifies four levels of service from Level Zero (the customers are on their own, without support from the service provider) to Level Four (highest quality service).
Traffic light Model of Service
Level Zero may apply to areas where customer expertise exceeds that of the service supplier; or to non-critical areas. Level Four may apply to mission critical or high value services. In general, the higher the level of service, the higher is the service cost and the lower the risk of loss of service: the lower the level, the cheaper the service but the greater is the risk of loss of service. In presenting multiple options of levels of service, management is prompted to establish the quality of service appropriate to that area. This process defines the minimum service requirement.
Thus if a support service consistently meets the minimum standard its service level will be perceived by the customer as good. If it over-achieves that does not necessarily mean a better service: it may just mean a more expensive service.
Minimum also applies to the range of services offered. Does the customer need a choice of three types of restaurant service and 12 main courses; 250 stock stationery items; four different word processing packages; three similar training courses? The more options we clog our services with, the more the service costs – in capacity, in external spend and in support effort. So we need to establish the minimum range of facilities we should be offering.
The service has to be acceptable to the customer. Customers have their jobs to do and the support services only exist to help them to do it. Many companies are undergoing a fundamental change of perception about their internal service providers and business units. Particularly if a support service is charged out, 'customer' is a more appropriate word than 'user' of a service. In this case, the SLA may also need to contain charge-out terms. In any event, customers of support services are our customers - so let us threat them as such.
That is another benefit of a SLA: it promotes customer orientation within the support services.
Yes, our customers have their job to do, but why? Many of them may themselves be in other service departments. If we only exist to serve our customers, why do our customers exist? Their role is to support the business mission - to sell widgets; to implement legislation; to bill customers so as to provide timely cash-flow; in short, to service our organizational goal, whatever that is.
SLA or Service Level Agreements were first developed for in-company service providers (the pioneers were the Computing Service). External services are usually dealt with by contracts, which may specify service level requirements. However, many contracts for external services are vague in service definition and quality and in these cases a Service Level Agreement may supplement (and form part of) a contract.
A Service Level Agreement, is simply:
"an agreement between the service provider and its customers quantifying the Minimum acceptable service to the customer"
Each of those words is important. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) takes the form 'if you do this, then I will be able to do that, and this will be the cost'. It has to be negotiated and agreed. Agreement is two-way. It depends on the customer providing accurate utilisation and volume forecasts (perhaps not exceeding 'n' transactions per hour) and in the customer meeting deadlines (say for providing a consistent volume of work to the service provider, or for not exceeding a peak demand limit). As with any negotiation each side will start out with an opening position. This position will be modified as negotiations continue, to take account of practical difficulty and cost. This negotiation should not be some sort of duel between the service professional and the customer: it should be a joint exploration of what is in the best interests of the customer's business. For in-company service providers it is also their business.
Quantifying the service is vital. There is an old saying 'what can't be measured doesn't exist'. Quantification of various aspects of the service will place assessment of its quality on an objective basis and get away from these vague, emotive words like 'slow' and 'poor'.
The service specification should be the minimum service level acceptable as meeting the customer requirement. The end customer or end customers' requirement will be examined to establish what the benefits of various levels of service are and what level is cost justified. There is probably no benefit in over-providing quality: it just costs more money. Over provision of quality - for instance by providing a one-hour turn-round when there is spare capacity - may just raise expectations to a level which becomes 4
unsupportable later when the workload increases and that initial quality cannot be maintained. The service has to be fully adequate but it needs to be more than that. However, the quality must also be consistent since the customer equates inconsistent quality to poor quality.
The definition of minimum (that is, adequate) has to be explored. The traffic light model of service and value may help in this process. This model identifies four levels of service from Level Zero (the customers are on their own, without support from the service provider) to Level Four (highest quality service).
Traffic light Model of Service
Level Zero may apply to areas where customer expertise exceeds that of the service supplier; or to non-critical areas. Level Four may apply to mission critical or high value services. In general, the higher the level of service, the higher is the service cost and the lower the risk of loss of service: the lower the level, the cheaper the service but the greater is the risk of loss of service. In presenting multiple options of levels of service, management is prompted to establish the quality of service appropriate to that area. This process defines the minimum service requirement.
Thus if a support service consistently meets the minimum standard its service level will be perceived by the customer as good. If it over-achieves that does not necessarily mean a better service: it may just mean a more expensive service.
Minimum also applies to the range of services offered. Does the customer need a choice of three types of restaurant service and 12 main courses; 250 stock stationery items; four different word processing packages; three similar training courses? The more options we clog our services with, the more the service costs – in capacity, in external spend and in support effort. So we need to establish the minimum range of facilities we should be offering.
The service has to be acceptable to the customer. Customers have their jobs to do and the support services only exist to help them to do it. Many companies are undergoing a fundamental change of perception about their internal service providers and business units. Particularly if a support service is charged out, 'customer' is a more appropriate word than 'user' of a service. In this case, the SLA may also need to contain charge-out terms. In any event, customers of support services are our customers - so let us threat them as such.
That is another benefit of a SLA: it promotes customer orientation within the support services.
Yes, our customers have their job to do, but why? Many of them may themselves be in other service departments. If we only exist to serve our customers, why do our customers exist? Their role is to support the business mission - to sell widgets; to implement legislation; to bill customers so as to provide timely cash-flow; in short, to service our organizational goal, whatever that is.
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