Anyone seen BT’s website lately? No.. not BP… BT (British Telecommunications).
They have taken the whole concept of SLA to another level.
Pure genius!
Forget about setting a SLA and trying to meet it!
Forget about making the business process more efficient, reducing response time!
Think out-of-the-box!
Instead of setting a SLA for the organisation – Set a SLA for the customer!
Brilliant!
Here’s a screenshot from their website:
As long as you tell the customer when to expect the response – you’re in the green!
How long should it take to respond to a customer’s email? It doesn’t matter!
Just calculate when you expect one of your staff will be able to answer an email, add 10%, and voila! The customer’s SLA!
Stop putting pressure on yourself. Put the pressure on the customer.
If you have calculated the response to be 7 hours, and told the customer this timeframe (or calculated it on your website), then the customer has no reason to call you before the end of the 7 hours waiting period.
“Excuse me sir. I know you thought that you would receive an answer in the next hour, but our sophisticated website has calculated that you will receive an answer in 7 hours. Sorry? I don’t understand? Why are you not satisfied? The computer has decided what the SLA should be. If we answer your email in less than 7 hours then we are ok. You may be cross at us only if we don’t supply an answer in the time that our computer has decided. Sir, please don’t be difficult…”
At last! BPM is no longer needed. SLA is “old school”.
Stop thinking SLAs – Think BT!
Adam Deane 
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