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  20-20 Vision and SLAs
 
Adhering to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is key to the success of any company, however some organisations appear to breach their customer commitments all too often. A mismanaged SLA can cost a company significantly more than just a financial penalty - it can cost a company its reputation too.
 
Clearly, a company that develops a name for breached SLAs is going to have trouble staying in business. And quite apart from the business arguments, it's downright unethical to enter into SLAs without the means of keeping them.
 
Only when organisations have visibility of all the facts and start taking into consideration the bigger picture will SLA's become meaningful things that customers can realistically rely on. More than that, organisations that can deliver on their commitments will be able to use this as a powerful selling tool, and a revenue-earner in its own right.
 
LACK OF INFORMATION
Many companies know the dire effects of breaching service levels only too well, yet some are seemingly unable to do anything other than panic at the first sign of incurring a penalty.
 
The root of the problem is a combination of a lack of information, and the inability to make the information they do have of real benefit to their business. Most service organisations usually have very poor visibility of their mobile workforce. They know who they've sent where, but not how far they've got with the job, or, when they're likely to be finished. And, although they will have a complete list of upcoming deadlines, processing the information into a bigger customer picture is too complex a task for the human brain, or for most current scheduling systems.
 
As a result, when a task reaches jeopardy and there's a prospect of incurring a penalty, companies panic. They lose sight of this bigger picture, throw all available resource at the single problem, at the expense of other customer commitments and their business's bottom line.
 
This all-too-popular knee-jerk approach to SLA "management" costs money and, ultimately, business. And, ironically, there's no reason to do it in the first place, even from a purely mercenary point of view: most penalties are one-offs, or escalate stepwise, so once the penalty has been incurred, there's no means of recouping it.
 
Yet with the right tools and information, at the point at which an SLA becomes a concern, organisations have the ability to make a considered business decision. The technology is there today, which will enable managers to weigh up the cost of breaching this SLA - the actual cost of the penalty, the value of the customer to the business and the potential damage to their own reputation - against the cost of committing resource to fulfilling the service agreement.
 
MEETING COMMITMENTS
With a comprehensive picture of workforce, workload, and the ability to translate this into information of real value to the business, organisations can minimise the likelihood of letting their customers down, so that the question of penalties should rarely arise.
 
This latest technology, Fieldforce Process Automation (FPA), provides organisations with not only the data on their workforce and workload, as well as offering organisations the ability to translate this into information on which they can make considered business decisions. More critically, by automating the right processes, FPA has the ability to raise the priority of any tasks relating to a specific service agreement, the closer the organisation gets to its deadlines.
 
This means that jobs can be scheduled so that they very rarely get anywhere near the danger area. By continually comparing commitments with available resource levels, organisations can see when there's going to be a problem meeting SLAs. And, with advance warning, they can tune their rosters to avoid the problem, instead of having to consider expensive last-minute measures like asking people to work overtime, so meeting commitments actually costs less.
 
If the worst happens and the organisation becomes at risk of incurring a penalty, the situation can be managed rationally; seeing well ahead of time when a job is approaching the danger area and taking appropriate action, for example by reallocating staff from lower-priority jobs. And if ever an SLA is unavoidably breached, the situation can be dealt with in the most effective way, according to the affected customers' needs and preferences.
 
MAKING MONEY OUT OF SLAS
With full service information, an organisation can turn SLAs into a strong sales differentiator, and make money out of them in other ways. For example, by offering differential levels of service attuned to the needs of different customers, and by pricing these appropriately. Individual customers can even be offered different service levels on different types of equipment.
 
With 20-20 vision of the workforce, workload and the relationship between the two, SLAs become an asset rather than a liability. Information can help an organisation manage its service rationally; it allows them to keep costs right down; and, best of all, it makes sure the correct SLAs are written in the first place.
 
Acquiring 20-20 vision may cost something in terms of overhauling information. But it will bring new sources of revenue, and secure two things that are beyond price: a company's reputation, and a good night's sleep.