“We will get back to you as soon as possible” promises the customer nothing and gives the team no order of work. An SLA (service level agreement) turns that vagueness into measurable targets. Here is how a service company can set its SLAs step by step.
1. Start with your history
Measure where you are before setting targets. From the last three months of cases, pull two numbers:
- Average first response time: how long until the customer hears back?
- Average resolution time: how long from opening to closing a case?
If you do not have these numbers, your first SLA should be “start measuring”. An unrealistic target is worse than none: when the team sees breaches every day, it stops taking the target seriously.
2. Define priorities by business impact
Priority should reflect business impact, not how upset the customer sounds. Four levels work for most service companies:
| Priority | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Service is completely down | Production line stopped, cold-storage pump not running |
| High | Important function down, no workaround | One of several lines out of service |
| Normal | Partial impact or a workaround exists | Error code on a panel, system still running |
| Low | Question or minor issue | Maintenance appointment, document request |
Write the definitions down and show them to whoever opens the case — it reduces the “everything is critical” problem.
3. Set two times per priority
| Priority | First response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 1 hour | 4 hours |
| High | 2 hours | 8 hours |
| Normal | 4 hours | 24 hours |
| Low | 8 hours | 48 hours |
Treat this table as a starting point and adjust it to your own history and team size. For work that needs a site visit, defining resolution as “a permanent fix plan shared with the customer” is often more realistic.
4. When does the clock run? Business hours
Does a low-priority case received on Saturday start counting on Monday morning? Decide up front:
- Critical cases: usually 24/7 (calendar time).
- Everything else: business hours (for example weekdays 09:00–18:00).
Pausing the clock while you wait for the customer (“waiting on customer”) is also fair — put it in the policy.
5. Give contract customers their own entitlement
Customers with maintenance contracts may get different targets or a monthly case allowance. Their contract entitlement should then take precedence over the general priority policy.
6. Write the escalation path in advance
Decide who is alerted before time runs out — for example the team lead at 50% of the critical target and the service manager on breach. Escalation is a way to save the case, not to find someone to blame.
7. Measure and share compliance
The simplest metric: SLA compliance = cases answered (or resolved) within target ÷ all cases. Report it monthly by priority and discuss what breached cases have in common: wrong priority, wrong assignee, missing spare parts?
From paper to system
Use our free SLA policy template to write your policy. Tracking timers by hand becomes impossible as volume grows. In CRModular you define an SLA policy per priority, every case shows its remaining time, breaches are flagged automatically and emails to your support mailbox become cases. Details: Support Ticketing and SLA Management and CRM for Field Service.