SLAs & SLA Business Rules

Responding to customers 24/7 can be challenging. That’s why we created Business Rules for SLAs. Combine the automated power of Business Rules with the efficiency of SLAs.

SLAs, or service level agreements, are time frames that align to your operating hours. For example, you may create an SLA that checks to see whether or not an agent responds to a visitor’s first chat message within two minutes. If the agent is unable to respond, a Business Rule may be used to allow the agent to follow up later. Create an SLA and win over customers with a quick and consistent experience.

In this article: 

• Understanding SLAs
• Using SLAs in Business Rules
• Analyzing Your SLA Metrics
• Checking SLA Status from the Dashboard

What you'll need:

• Operating hours must be set up in your instance 

Understanding SLAs

Response times are key when visitors enter a conversation. SLAs help keep track of the time it takes for an agent to respond to a visitor, and how long it takes for the case to get resolved. Use SLAs to give agents visual cues when the SLAs are met, breached, or about to be breached.

SLAs are measured by: 

First Response - How long it takes an agent to respond to a visitor’s first message

Case Resolution - The time it takes for an agent to close a case after the first response

Furthermore, agents can see the status of the SLA rule from the Dashboards. Conversations will appear as a different color depending on their SLA status. The colors are: 

• Green - meaning the SLA was resolved within the time frame
• Yellow - meaning the SLA is about to be breached or 75% of the allotted time elapsed
• Red - meaning the SLA was breached

In addition, administrators may also apply Business Rules to SLAs. This way, even if an SLA is breached, there’s still a follow-up for customers. 

Creating an SLA

To get started, go to Settings > Workflows > SLA Policies.

Step 1: To create an SLA policy, click on ‘Create SLA Policy’.

Step 2: Name your policy and add a description.

Step 3: You may also set your performance metrics, First Response or Case Resolution.

Step 4: Set your SLA Metric to activate during hours of operation or outside of hours of operation. These times can be set in minutes, hours, or days. The metric will not be tracked if left blank.

Step 5: Once created, click on the ‘Go Back’ button. Make sure the SLA is set to active by switching the toggle button from red to green (left to right).

Your SLA is now ready to go.

Building an SLA Business Rule

When an SLA is breached, you may set up follow-up actions via a Business Rule to ensure visitors are getting responses. To begin building an SLA business rule, head to Settings > Workflows > Business Rules. Click on ‘New Rule’ and choose a communication channel (chat (new chat), email, and SMS are supported).

Select ‘SLA Policy’ from the ‘Add an action’ menu. Then, apply your SLA metric. Next, select any of the following actions: 

• Action Group - Assign up to five additional actions
• Assign Department or Assign Agent - Choose an agent or department to follow up with the visitor 
• Assign Tag - Organize the conversation for easy follow-up later
• Assign Bot - Have a chatbot engage with visitors 
• Email Notification - Send connected inboxes an email 
• Apply Popup Notifications - Display a popup message letting the visitor know how they can expect to be contacted for a follow-up

For example, whenever a qualifying visitor enters a conversation, you can send an email notification to a connected inbox.

Use send an email notification to alert agents that a visitor has left information. We recommend creating an email template with the following information: 

• A helpful subject line such as “You’ve Got a Visitor”
• A message informing them they had a visitor 
• A variable with the contact’s information such as {{contact.name}}
  

Keep in mind that all breached SLAs will show up in this inbox. It may be a good idea to create a dedicated inbox for such emails if you receive many conversations a day.  

Analyzing Your SLA Metrics

After you’ve created an SLA and activated it using a Business Rule, you can view data about it from the SLA page. Underneath the ‘Used’ heading, you’ll see the number of times the policy was used. Click on the SLA policy to see the date it was last used.

SLAs can help you gain greater control of the Dashboard. Pair SLAs with Business Rules to implement a consistent follow up for every visitor interaction.

Still have questions? Reach out to support@acquire.io.