Autotask tool monitors internal service levels 28 November, 2008 By Chris Talbot

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Service level agreements (SLAs) are becoming increasingly common, with end-customers expecting their service providers to provide a certain level of service, whether that means responding to a problem within a certain timeframe or ensuring the service has a minimum up-time level. For solution providers who are now beginning to offer managed servcies, this presents a challenge.

"As more solution providers get into managed services, where they're essentially not just on the hook for break/fix ... more often than not these service level agreements are starting to get attached to the contract," said Bob Vogel, CMO of Autotask. "It's a challenge right now for solution providers to be able to monitor their own performance level in terms of the amount of time it might take for getting that first response or time to resolve it."

The Autotask Service Level Management Tools should help. The software puts into place mechanisms to not just monitor the amount of time technicians are putting into each job, which Autotask already enables solution providers to do, but also track how long it took for technicians to respond to issues after trouble tickets were created, Vogel said.

"Essentially what we've put into our software is the ability for these service level providers to model whatever their service level contractual agreements are within the software," he said.

The software will monitor the services and response times but also help to organize tickets so they're resolved not just based on priority but on the next service level milestone that needs to be met, Vogel said.

Service levels can also be set based on function, so if a high priority printer ticket comes in at the same time a lower priority network problem arrives, and the network is still a greater priority, then the software will organize them appropriately, he said.

Service providers can use the tool to set up internal performance level goals. Even if they don't have SLAs in place, they may want to make sure technicians are getting problems resolved in a certain amount of time to deliver the highest quality service possible, Vogel said.

With the software, they can also get reports and see a comparison of the performance goals versus the reality so they know whether or not to adjust their processes or their clients' expectations, he said.

"It's really all about meeting expectations and setting them properly to make sure they're delivering the right level of service," Vogel said.