Create and Manage Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) help your team stay accountable to the response and resolution standards your customers expect. Define time targets for different types of conversations or customer groups so you can ensure that high-priority requests get the attention they deserve and catch issues before they slip through the cracks.

Creating a Policy

1. To create a new SLA policy, navigate to Manage > Inboxes > [Your Inbox] > SLAs, then select New SLA Policy.

   
   

   

2. Enter a name for your policy and add a description. Use this space to outline the goal of the policy, who it applies to, and any other relevant context.

   
   

   

3. Define the conditions that determine when this policy applies to conversations. If you set no conditions, the policy applies to all conversations.

   
   

   Select Add Condition Group to begin. You can choose from the following condition types:

   
   
   • Company: Define specific companies to include or exclude.
   • Customer Property: Apply policies based on customer properties you've set up beforehand.
   • Custom Field: Apply policies based on custom fields you've set up beforehand.

   

4. Define your time targets. Both time targets aren't required, but you must enable at least one. You have two options:

   
   
   • First Response Time: The time allowed to send the first response to a customer. You can set this in hours or minutes, with the option to measure within calendar hours or within office hours. Toggle this on to enable it for your policy.
   • Time to Resolution: The time allowed to resolve a conversation. In Help Scout, "resolved" means closed with at least one user response. You can set this in hours or minutes, with the option to measure within calendar hours or within office hours. Toggle this on to enable it for your policy.

5. Click Save to create your policy.

Managing SLA Policies

Order of Operations

SLA policies are applied in the order they appear in your list at Manage > Inboxes > [Your Inbox] > SLAs. The first matching policy in the list applies to the conversation, so put your highest-priority policies first.

New policies are added to the bottom of the list by default. To reorder them, click, hold, and drag a policy to your preferred position.

Deactivating a Policy

Temporarily disable a policy without deleting it by selecting the policy from the list and toggle off Enable SLA and then click the blue Save button.

Deleting a Policy

Permanently remove a policy by selecting it from the list and choosing Delete SLA. Confirm the deletion by selecting Delete Policy.