Service Level Agreements Essential

Wherever a bureau or outsourcing facility is involved in any part of a contact centre, a Service Level Agreement is essential.

After all, managing a contact centre, either by direct management or via an outsourcing contact centre arrangement, is far from a trivial undertaking. There are so many details that have to be managed and executed effectively. It is just not good enough to have general contracts or handshake agreements. If you want to avoid misunderstanding and hiccups down track (and obviously you do) then Service Level Agreements have to play a central role in day-to-day operations.

For a modern call centre that is creating and retaining sound customer relationships, a carefully constructed Service Level Agreement is core to both call centre management itself, and successful outsourcing. For applying best practice there needs to be a regularly reviewed and updated Service Level Agreement that documents all relevant activities.

Of course, a major question for many call centre managers is, ‘how do you establish and maintain Service Level Agreements?  Well, the fundamental requirement is a commitment to a customer service culture coming from every level of the call centre and especially from the top. In addition, there must be a commitment to making the Service Level Agreement work over the longer term.

Fundamentally, with a Service Level Agreement you are introducing and implementing reasonable expectations for customers, on the one hand, and for your service personnel, on the other.

The Service Level Agreement is designed to act as a guide for establishing good, sound business relationships.  A worthwhile agreement will include commitments for response, escalation and resolution time whenever possible, and should break down the different types of issues.

Vendors often have categories predefined, such as major and minor outages. Some companies break down internal issues to troubles (something isn't working) versus service (ie, a new feature or capability, or a change). The terms used are not important. But agreement on such issues is important, and no one should be in any doubt about what action should be taken at pre determined trigger points.

An important part of any effective Service Level Agreement is the inclusion of documentation and processes that clearly show responsibilities.

The details of a Service Level Agreement should match business needs as closely as possible. In one situation, addressing the issue of system uptime could be critical while in another call centre the business may require that there is immediate response to support issues 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

A workable Service Level Agreement should set objectives that support what the business must accomplish. Having objectives and metrics alone is not enough to guarantee that customers will be happy.

Good Service Level Agreements also include both remedies and penalties for missing established service levels. These penalties need to motivate vendors to achieve the objectives, and the remedies need to help make sure you get back on track quickly. In other words, you don’t want to miss your service levels over and over again, regardless of the size of the penalty.

Usually, it is good for call centre managers to ask a prospective vendor to help craft a Service Level Agreement and to include metrics that are achievable and a win-win for both parties.

When establishing a Service Level Agreement, it is also worthwhile for call centre managers to ask for examples of agreements that the vendor has successfully implemented with other customers with similar business needs.