Zendesk SLAs – Gravity CX

Understanding and Using Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in Zendesk

A service level agreement (SLA) is a policy that defines and measures the response and resolution times your support team provides to customers. On Enterprise plans, group SLAs can also be defined, which are separate policies between internal teams that define a target ownership time for a group. Group SLAs are also known as Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) and are used in workflows that involve multiple teams solving tickets.

Key Functionality

Clear Objectives: SLAs set clear objectives for your support team. SLA policy information is visible in tickets and views, helping agents prioritise tickets.
Consistent Experience: Regularly meeting SLA targets ensures customers receive timely issue resolution.
Problem Identification: SLAs enable you to identify and address problems quickly when targets aren’t met.
Accountability: Group SLAs help create accountability between internal teams by defining and measuring how long tickets are assigned to a specific group.
Internal Process Improvement: You can track how your internal teams uphold and achieve the overall SLA of a ticket.
Targeted Resolution: Create a group SLA for each of your teams and see which teams are meeting their objectives.
Gap Identification: Group SLAs can help you get insight into performance and training opportunities for every team that is assigned a ticket.

SLA Structure

SLA policies have a defined structure:

Conditions: Criteria a ticket must satisfy for the SLA policy to apply. Conditions for SLA policies are similar to the conditions used to set up triggers, including 'All' and 'Any' conditions, and can be based on ticket fields, user fields, or organisation fields.
Target: The goal within which a time-based metric should fall. For example, set a target of 15 minutes for the first reply time for urgent tickets.
Metrics: Measurements you choose to measure. You can define SLA service targets for seven different metrics, which include reply time, update time, and resolution time metrics.
Business or Calendar Hours: Whether targets will be measured in business or calendar hours by priority value.

Setting up SLA Policies

Tickets must have a priority set in the system default Priority field (custom ticket fields don't count). If you don't set a priority, none of your rules will be met. You can use a trigger to set a priority when a ticket is created.

Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up an SLA policy:

In Admin Center, click Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Service level agreements.
Click Create policy.
Enter a Policy Name.
Optionally, enter a Description, then click Next.
Select the Conditions for the policy.
- Start typing the condition to autocomplete or select an option from the drop-down menu.
Click Next.
Click Add target for the SLA metrics you want to define, then select a target from the menu.
- Enter a time target for each ticket priority. The minimum target time you can set is 15 seconds. You can enter hours, minutes, or seconds.
Optionally, select either calendar hours or business hours for Hours of operation for each priority.
Click Add.
Continue to add additional metrics by clicking Add target, then selecting a target from the menu, or click Save policy to finish.

Setting up Group SLA Policies

Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up a group SLA policy:

In Admin Center, click Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Service level agreements.
Select Group SLAs.
Click Create policy.
Enter a Policy Name.
Optionally, enter a Description, then click Next.
In the Group condition, select the group or groups for this policy. If you don’t select a group, then your group SLA policy will apply to all tickets and will begin measuring when a ticket is assigned to a group.
Select additional Conditions for the policy. Start typing the condition to autocomplete or select an option from the drop-down menu.
Click Next.
In the Group SLA metrics section, click Add target then select the Ownership time target from the menu.
Enter a time target for each ticket priority. You can enter hours, minutes, or seconds. Optionally, select either calendar hours or business hours for Hours of operation.
Click Add, then Save policy.

Editing SLA Policies

To edit an existing SLA policy:

In Admin Center, click Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Service level agreements.
Define a new SLA policy or edit an existing policy.
Ensure that the policy you’re editing or creating has a First reply time metric defined.
Click Advanced settings.
Select the check boxes for the settings you want to apply to the policy.
Click Add, then Save policy.

Understanding SLA Metrics

You can define SLA service targets for seven different metrics:

Reply Time Metrics

First Reply Time: The time between ticket creation and the first public comment from an agent (or autoreply).
Next Reply Time: The time between the oldest unanswered customer comment and the next public comment from an agent (or autoreply).

Update Time Metrics

Periodic Update: Measures the time between each public comment from agents.
Pausable Update: Measures the time between each public comment from agents when a ticket is in a New, Open, or On-hold ticket status.

Resolution Time Metrics

Requester Wait Time: The combined total time spent in the New, Open, and On-hold ticket statuses.
Agent Work Time: The combined total time spent in the New and Open ticket statuses.
Total Resolution Time: The total amount of time it should take to resolve a ticket, including time in a Pending status.

Group SLA Metrics

Ownership time: Ownership time measures the length of time the ticket is assigned to a group. It starts when a group is assigned to a ticket and ends when the ticket is reassigned or solved. If the ticket is reopened, a new group ownership time is started for the group.

How SLAs are Applied to Tickets

When a ticket is created or updated, it goes through all the triggers set up in your Zendesk instance. After the triggers have been applied, that ticket goes through the SLA system. The first policy whose conditions are satisfied by the ticket is applied to the ticket. The same process occurs for your list of group SLAs. SLAs and group SLAs are separate policies, meaning that both an SLA policy and group SLA policy can be applied to a ticket at the same time.

Viewing SLA Information

SLA information is visible in tickets and views. You can also create business rules that take action based on SLAs (for example, to get attention on a ticket before the SLA is breached).

You can view reporting about your SLAs on the SLAs dashboard tab in Zendesk Explore.

Examples of SLAs

Respond to urgent tickets in 10 minutes and resolve them within 2 hours.
Messaging customers may want to define an SLA where the first reply time has a 30 second target.
Set a target for your sales team that normal priority tickets assigned to their group are addressed within eight hours.

Advanced settings for SLA metrics

Advanced settings are available for the First reply time metric, which changes the logic for when an SLA metric is activated or fulfilled on an individual policy basis.