Connect to IntercomService Level Agreement
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a documented commitment between a company and its customers specifying minimum response and resolution time targets for support requests. SLAs are typically tiered by customer segment (enterprise SLAs are stricter than standard) and by issue priority (P1 critical issues have 1-hour targets; P4 low-priority issues may have 5-day targets). Enterprise SLAs are often written into contracts with financial penalties for persistent non-compliance.
Common SLA structure: First Reply within N hours; Resolution within M hours — targets set per customer tier and issue priority
B2B SaaS standard tier examples: First reply within 4 business hours; resolution within 2 business days. Enterprise tier: First reply within 1 hour (24/7); resolution within 4 business hours for P1. SLA clocks typically run on business hours unless a 24/7 commitment is made explicitly.
Typical B2B SaaS first-reply SLA targets by tier
- 1Setting one SLA for all customers and priorities — a single blended SLA target makes enterprise commitments impossible to manage alongside high-volume standard tickets.
- 2Defining SLAs in calendar hours without specifying business hours — customers assume 24/7 unless you explicitly state business-hours-only SLAs.
- 3Not tracking SLA compliance by root cause — knowing you missed SLA is only half the information. Knowing why (staffing, escalation delay, a specific ticket category) drives improvement.
- 4Confusing SLA (commitment to customer) with SLO (internal operational target) — SLOs should be 10–20% stricter than SLAs to create a buffer before customer-facing commitments are missed.