SLA and response time: what deadline do you promise, and how do you meet it?

What is an SLA (service level agreement)?

A service level agreement, or SLA, is the agreement with your customer about the level of your service: which installations you cover, during which hours, and how quickly you respond. In a technical service department, it is part of the maintenance contract or an annex to it. The deadline is the part that most often leads to disputes.

SLA response time: three deadlines to keep apart

• Response time: the time between the report and your first response, for example a phone call saying when a technician will come.
• Time to intervention on site: the time until the technician is at the installation. That is often what a customer means by “fast”.
• Resolution time: the time until the installation works again, possibly with a temporary solution. It depends on parts and suppliers and is the hardest to promise.

Also set out when the clock runs. With a deadline in working hours, for example Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 17:00, a report at four o’clock on Friday with a deadline of 8 working hours runs until Monday afternoon. And agree when the clock starts: at the phone call, when the email is received or at the report in your portal.

An example SLA per priority

An example to adapt, not a standard: the right deadlines depend on your team, your region and what the customer pays for them.

State in the SLA whether those hours are working hours or calendar hours. And if you promise a resolution time, make it depend on the delivery of the parts.

What goes in an SLA for technical services?

A checklist for the clause or the annex to your contract:

1. Scope: which sites, installations and services.
2. Service window: working hours, weekends, public holidays, and whether there is an on-call service.
3. How a report comes in: phone number, email address or portal, and when the deadline starts.
4. Priorities: a short definition with examples, and who sets the priority.
5. Deadlines per priority: first response, on site, possibly a resolution time.
6. Exceptions: no access, waiting for a part from a supplier, damage caused by third parties, an installation that was not maintained as the contract requires.
7. What the customer does: a contact person, access, a clear description of the problem.
8. Follow-up: how and how often you report on the deadlines met.
9. A missed deadline: who notifies whom, how you escalate, and whether a commercial arrangement is attached to it.

Have the final text reviewed by your legal adviser, especially if you link compensation to it.

How do you meet the deadline with a small team?

• Triage when the report comes in. Always ask the same questions: is the installation down, is there a safety risk, is there an alternative, since when? Those answers set the priority, even if the caller insists.
• Check twice a day what is at risk of being late. Which interventions are approaching their deadline without a technician or without a date?
• Room for the unexpected. A free block every day, or one technician who takes the urgent calls.
• Parts for contract customers. What their installations often need is in the van or in the warehouse.
• Tell the customer before the deadline passes. A customer who hears at three o’clock that the technician will come at five reacts differently from a customer who still knows nothing at five.
• If you promise day and night, organise an on-call service. A deadline that runs at night needs someone who answers the phone at night.

Measuring your SLA honestly

• For every report, note the time of the report, the first response, the arrival and the end of the work.
• Count per month and per priority how many reports stayed within the deadline. Look at each overrun separately: scheduling, a part or access?
• Only change a priority afterwards with a reason, never to make a figure look better.
• Keep a separate record of the exceptions, so you can show them if the customer asks.

More figures to track: KPIs for a field service team.

An example: no hot water in an apartment building

Tuesday, half past two. The manager of an apartment building calls: there has been no hot water since midday. At the office, someone asks the standard questions. The installation is down for all residents, with no safety risk. The intervention gets the urgent priority.

The planner looks at the technicians’ day. One technician is working nearby and has a free slot at four o’clock. The planner puts the intervention there, calls the technician to tell them and calls the manager back with the arrival time.

How it works in Digitalnatie Service Suite

Every intervention has a priority: normal, important, urgent or critical. When you create an intervention, important is filled in by default: so choose deliberately for every report.

• Deadlines: the default response time is 72 h for normal, 48 h for important, 24 h for urgent and 8 h for critical. The deadlines are those of your organisation; they determine the deadline shown on the intervention.
• On the intervention form: at the top, the priority and an SLA deadline signal; on the right, the deadlines. You can change the priority in the intervention’s details, and the change is recorded in its log.
• What needs attention: the dashboard shows the number of overdue interventions and a block with the urgent and overdue interventions to tackle first. The interventions list has views for overdue interventions, for urgent and overdue ones, and for open breakdowns.
• Scheduling: on the planning board, the queue of unscheduled interventions can be filtered on urgent ones and breakdowns. The technician’s app updates when it is opened and then every minute. There are no push notifications: call the technician about an urgent change.
• Reports from customers: anyone who reports a breakdown via an installation’s QR code or via the customer portal indicates how urgent it is. At the office, you filter the QR reports on urgency.
• Per technician: in the reporting, the technicians tab shows the overdue work per technician, with a CSV export.

Two limits. The deadline follows the priority of the intervention: if you have agreed a shorter deadline with a contract customer, choose the priority that matches it when they report. And the average response time of the QR reports is not yet calculated.

Recurring work is handled in the maintenance contracts; see also tracking maintenance contracts and scheduling technicians.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between response time and intervention time?

The response time is the time until your first response to a report, for example a phone call with an initial diagnosis and a plan. The intervention time is the time until the technician is on site. Write in your SLA which of the two you promise, or both, and whether they run in working hours or calendar hours.

What does service level agreement mean?

A service level agreement (SLA) is a written agreement between a service provider and its customer about the level of service: what is covered, during which hours, and within which deadlines the service provider responds and comes on site.

What response time is usual for a technical service department?

There is no fixed standard: the deadline depends on the installation, what downtime costs the customer, your team and your region. Start with four priorities and, for each priority, a deadline you already meet today. In Service Suite, the default response times are 72, 48, 24 and 8 hours, from normal to critical.

Does the response time also run at night and at weekends?

Only if you agree that it does. Set out the service window in the SLA, for example working days from 8:00 to 17:00, and say whether the deadline stops outside it. If you promise a deadline that runs day and night, you need an on-call service that also answers at night.

How do I track deadlines in Service Suite?

Every intervention shows its priority and the SLA deadline signal; the deadline of the priority determines the deadline on the intervention. The dashboard shows the overdue interventions and those to tackle first, and the interventions list has a view of urgent and overdue interventions.