A service promise is easy to write and hard to keep: "Response within 4 hours, resolution within 48." The contract says it, the sales pitch says it, and on a busy Monday nobody on the service desk can tell which of 60 open cases is about to breach.
Response vs resolution
- Response time — from the complaint to acknowledgement or a technician assigned.
- Resolution time — from the complaint to the problem fixed.
Both should be measured per case, against targets that come from the customer's contract or priority.
Setting SLAs that work
| Customer / priority | Response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| AMC — critical equipment | 4 hours | 24 hours |
| AMC — standard | 1 working day | 3 working days |
| In warranty | 1 working day | 5 working days |
| Chargeable | 2 working days | Best effort |
(Illustrative — set targets from your own contracts and capacity.)
Track at-risk cases, not just breaches
The useful view is not yesterday's breaches — it is today's cases close to breaching, so the desk can act:
- Each case carries its targets from the contract or priority.
- The desk sees time remaining on open cases.
- At-risk cases are escalated before the deadline, not after.
Weekly SLA review
- Breaches by cause: parts, technician capacity, diagnosis, customer availability.
- Repeat cases on the same unit — a product or maintenance problem.
- SLA performance by customer, especially contract customers due for renewal.
How Zaqnet tracks SLAs
- Cases in the Service app in ControlRoom carry service level targets, so the team sees which are at risk of breaching.
- Cases are raised against the customer's unit, with its warranty or AMC cover visible.
- Work orders send technicians, who work them in GroundLink — see field service management.
An SLA nobody can see until it breaches is a penalty clause, not a service promise.