SLA (Service-level Agreement) overview

SLA (Service-level Agreement) is an arrangement to meet target times for replying to the tickets or answering chats or calls by your agents. SLA defines how fast a support provider has to answer a customer’s service request.

 

To have your SLA Levels applied, you have to assign them to tickets by rules. You can create SLA rules which are however only applied when a ticket is created OR if you need to apply SLA level for example when a tag is added to a ticket then you can use the default Rules engine or even Time rules.

Step 1: In LiveAgent navigate to Configuration > Automation > SLA.


Step 2: Click on Create Level and define the desired action to be taken in the contracted delivery time of service. You can also define your business (working) hours.

Note: Here you can find each SLA level action description:

• First answer -  Time for agent answer on New ticket (Time is counting from moment when customer submit new ticket till agent answer)
• Next answer -  Time for agent answer on Open ticket (Time is counting from moment when customer reply in ticket till agent answer)
• Chat answer -  Time for agent to answer chat (Time is counting from moment when customer initiate a chat till agent answer a chat)
• Call answer -   Time for agent to answer call (Time is counting from moment when customer initial a call till agent answer a call) 

Tip: Why sould you define your business hours? If you wish to ensure the answers to be done e.g. in 3 hours, but you (your support) does not work during weekends, then the time for the answer would be counted only within the business hours you defined.

Example: If an SLA Level with a First answer due 4 hours is created in LiveAgent for your Pre-Sale department, then the tickets which are applied that SLA Level must be answered within 4 hours, during specified Business hours, otherwise they will be marked as Overdue.
 

Important note: "Postpone" action pauses all applied SLAs for a certain time (you can set specific a time-frame to your liking and leave a note). After specified 'postpone time' (or when a customer writes another message) a ticket gets "reopened" and becomes part of the workflow of the department where the ticket is.  Example:

- time: 17:00 and example ticket is 5 hours "old", which means the ticket arrived at 12:00
- SLA for the first answer is set to 8 hours in your agent panel > Configuration > Automation > SLA
- do "postpone" action on this example ticket at 17:05 and choose 4 hours to postpone
- at 21:05, the example ticket will be reopened as "New/Open" and it will be 5 hours and 5 minutes "old" as it was already opened from 12:00 to 17:05 before the postpone action.