SLA discipline
What is SLA discipline in a support queue?
Answering and resolving inside the commitment that was made, and being honest in the ticket when that is not going to happen. It is scored as a judgement about the queue rather than a stopwatch: the tickets that breach are usually the ones nobody flagged, not the ones that were hard.
- Responded and resolved within SLA
- One of the 11 dimensions every ticket here is graded against
What a weak answer looks like
The ways this is usually lost
Named failures rather than general warnings, because a warning nobody can recognise in their own work changes nothing.
Going quiet on a ticket that is slipping, which is how most breaches actually happen.
Sending a holding reply with no content purely to stop a first-response clock.
Working the newest ticket because it is on screen, while an older one ages out of its window.
What a strong one looks like
What the grader is actually looking for
The same ticket, done in the way that scores.
Saying early that a deadline is at risk, and what is being done about it.
A first response that carries something real (what is known, what is being checked) rather than an acknowledgement for the clock.
Working the queue by what is closest to breaching and what is most severe, rather than by what arrived last.
Questions
Asked about this one
Does a fast reply with nothing in it count?
It stops a clock and it is scored as the hollow gesture it is. A first response that names what is known and what is being checked takes barely longer and is the thing the commitment was actually for.
What should happen when a deadline is going to be missed?
Say so before it passes, in the ticket, with a new time. A breach that was flagged and explained is a different event from one the customer discovered on their own.
Related guides
- Tone & empathy
- Diagnostic quality
- Communication clarity
- Resolution correctness
- Documentation
- Judgement on the AI's suggestion
- Ticket admin accuracy
- Priority judgement
- Escalation judgement
- Technical depth
- Technical support interview questions, answered from realistic tickets
See this scored on a realistic ticket: work one free, read a worked ticket, or see what a graded record shows. Every guide is listed on the guides index, and if something here is wrong or unclear, tell us.
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