---
name: support-sla-management
description: Set, measure, and honour response and resolution commitments that reflect real capacity rather than aspiration. Use when promising response times to customers or in contracts.
---

# Support SLA management

An SLA is a promise with consequences. The common failure is promising
what looks competitive rather than what capacity supports, then missing
it, which is worse than a modest promise kept.

## Method

1. **Derive targets from measured capacity.** Current performance at the
   percentile you intend to hit, not the average and not an aspiration.
2. **Commit to response before resolution.** Response time is within
   your control; resolution depends on the problem, and promising it
   invites breach on the hard cases.
3. **Define the clock precisely.** When it starts, whether it pauses
   awaiting customer reply, and which hours count. Ambiguity here is
   where disputes come from.
4. **Tier by severity with different targets.** One target across all
   ticket types either over-serves the trivial or under-serves the
   critical (see support-ticket-triage).
5. **Alert before breach, not after.** A ticket approaching its target
   needs intervention while it can still be met.
6. **Report honestly, including misses.** Selective reporting is found
   eventually and costs more than the misses would have.
7. **Staff for the peak you accept.** An SLA met only at average volume
   is not met, and queues arrive in bursts (see capacity-planning).

## Boundaries

Contractual SLAs carry financial and legal consequences and need review
before commitment (see agent-legal-desk). Meeting an SLA is not
satisfying a customer; a fast unhelpful reply meets the target and fails
the person. Targets shape behaviour and can crowd out quality if measured
alone.