What is SLA and how can it help you build better relationships with service providers?
Oh, the eternal conflict—IT vs. Business. They both want the same thing—better quality IT services, be it new product development or troubleshooting for an existing solution. But they just can’t seem to speak the same language. In fact, the languages they speak are so drastically different that when the business is saying, “You should have done it yesterday,” what IT is hearing is, “You still have a couple of weeks.” Amazing, isn’t it?
Meet service level management and service level agreements, the concepts used in the ITIL framework to liaise between the client and the IT service provider.
Maybe that’s the key to successfully managing your IT partner?
In ITIL 4, the newest edition of the IT Infrastructure Library framework, service level is defined as “one or more metrics that describe expected or achieved service quality.”
Service level management is, in turn, a practice that sets clear business-based targets for service quality and ensures that these targets are met.
The key tool used in the ITIL service management practice is the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a formal agreement between a service provider and their customer, detailing the scope of services to be provided, the expected quality of service, and other relevant terms and conditions. The primary purpose of an SLA is to clearly define the customer’s expectations, hold the provider accountable for delivering the agreed-upon services, and establish a benchmark for the provider to measure their performance against.
Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) are agreements between the various parties involved in service delivery. For instance, if the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for employee onboarding specifies a resolution time of two days, multiple teams are responsible for meeting this timeline. The HR team must prepare the employment paperwork, Facilities must provide the necessary equipment, and the Finance team must assist the new employee in opening a bank account. OLAs define the quality standards and service requirements for each of these teams to ensure they collectively meet the overall SLA commitments.
In smaller organizations or simpler service structures, OLAs might be less formal or even unnecessary if the internal teams communicate clearly and understand their roles without the need for additional documentation.
While OLAs can be considered optional in some scenarios, they are generally beneficial for maintaining clarity and accountability within complex or larger service environments.
Here are the key objectives that guide the activities of the Service Level Management:
To achieve this, the SLM team meets with the client and conducts client interviews and surveys. ITIL calls this “initial listening” and highlights the importance of this process because it helps discover the client’s key expectations.
Business analysts and technical account managers work to match a customer’s expectations with the services the provider offers.
SLAs document the agreed-upon service levels. In the IT service management industry, automated SLA management plays a key role. The client might sign the SLA, or multiple SLAs as a legal document, but maintaining these SLAs is largely facilitated through proper service level management mechanisms in ITSM software tools.
With automated service level management processes in Alloy Navigator, set clear timeframes for responding to and resolving incoming requests. For example, your Service Support team would guarantee to respond to standard requests within eight hours and resolve them within sixteen, while emergency tickets would be processed four times quicker.
Our software is flexible enough to maintain any SLA structure you choose:
Alloy Navigator automatically prioritizes tickets and calculates their response and due dates based on the ticket’s urgency and the SLA for the ticket requester.
Whenever a new ticket is submitted, it is automatically linked to an SLA based on the requester’s details. The SLA can be specific to the individual requester, their organization, or a group they belong to (such as a VIP group). If no specific SLA is found, a global SLA is used.
The workflow ensures accurate ticket prioritization and sets response and due dates based on SLA terms and priority, thereby guaranteeing SLAs are met to everyone’s satisfaction.
Monitoring and identifying possible service issues that threaten SLAs.
First of all, let’s recall the rules that are applicable to any new organizational initiative that you’re launching:
Here is some more specific advice:
ITSM professionals use the term “watermelon effect” to describe a situation where agreed-upon SLAs are met (appearing “green” on the charts), but the client remains unsatisfied (the reality is “red”). This occurs when SLAs are not precise enough to accurately reflect the business implications of service delivery, and achieving SLAs doesn’t translate into positive business outcomes.
Start your trial with Alloy Software today
