Whatever our sector or profession, we all have (or should have) ways to gauge how well we\u2019re meeting our customers\u2019 and clients\u2019 needs and expectations. We often gather this feedback by informal, ad hoc means, but many of us also have formal, contractual arrangements in place. Within the IT world, these take the form of service-level agreements or SLAs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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An SLA defines the levels of service the customer can expect, the metrics by which they\u2019re measured, and any remedies or penalties that apply if they\u2019re not met. The details can of course be exceedingly complex; but the underlying principles are fairly simple for clients and suppliers to get their heads round. Hence they\u2019re still ubiquitous after all these years and show no signs of going anywhere.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
So why is Acora confidently proclaiming their demise? To be clear, we\u2019re not \u2013 or not in so many words. What we are saying is that, in our view, time\u2019s up for the SLA as the only measure of IT success, for a number of reasons.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Some of these are fairly basic. SLAs are (and the clue\u2019s in the title) entirely service-focused, so tend to deal with hygiene factors \u2013 the things that, as a client, you should simply expect as a matter of course \u2013 and responses to specific issues and incidents. Perhaps more significantly, they generally define minimum levels of performance only. This means that provided they\u2019re fulfilling what they\u2019re contractually obliged to do, there\u2019s no incentive for suppliers to do more or better. Nothing\u2019s actually broken or fallen over, ergo everything must be fine. Logically impeccable, but very unlikely to drive improvement; or, worse, may encourage people to \u2018let sleeping dogs lie\u2019. Indeed, you could argue that an SLA has never actually been a measure of success, and more a measure of failure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Plus, the very longevity of SLAs disguises the fact that their essential form and function haven\u2019t changed all that much \u2013 but the world and technology have moved on enormously. Look at SLAs from 10 years ago and chances are they\u2019ll be remarkably similar to those in force today. The risk is that they end up regulating and measuring old aspects of performance that no longer apply, while not adequately addressing new ones that do.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Then there are the metrics. A standard means of measuring performance in most SLAs is the customer satisfaction score or CSAT, usually conducted quarterly. It\u2019s obviously better than nothing, but CSAT provides a snapshot that may not accurately reflect overall experience and satisfaction levels. Because while CSAT is structured and formalised, you\u2019re still dealing with people; and if they didn\u2019t like how you dealt with their recent issue, or they\u2019re just having a bad day, they\u2019re going to mark you down. As with most things in life, we\u2019re all only as good as our last gig.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
But for us, the biggest drawback with using SLAs as the sole measure of success is what we call the Performance Paradox. This is where all your SLAs are green, but users and staff are still grumbling, frustrated and unhappy with the IT service they\u2019re receiving. The cause is simple but fundamental. SLAs basically measure users\u2019 satisfaction with IT support in response to specific trigger events: they\u2019re not designed to assess or track the overall user experience (UX).
This really matters. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown new light on the relationship between people\u2019s interactions with and experience of technology, and their productivity and wellbeing. And with the shift to remote and hybrid working looking increasingly widespread and permanent, this correlation is only going to grow in importance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
It\u2019s worth saying that this isn\u2019t a fault inherent in SLAs: historically, measuring UX has just been very difficult. Constantly asking users how they\u2019re feeling risks simply irritating them; what evidence you do obtain tends, unsurprisingly, to be unstructured, qualitative and essentially anecdotal.
But advances in technology now allow us to measure the UX in real-time and, crucially, in non-intrusive ways. This isn\u2019t off-the-shelf stuff; we\u2019ve invested significantly in developing and making it available to clients as part of our managed services offering.
By combining this UX data with our standard SLA, we\u2019ve created something new and enhanced, which we call the Experience Level Agreement, or XLA. And what XLA does is bring the SLA into line with today\u2019s IT environment, by adding two crucial measures of success.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The first we call the Digital Experience \u2013 capturing how people actually use and interact with technology and applications day-to-day. What they tell us about real-world reliability and performance help us understand exactly how IT is contributing to their stress, frustration and dissatisfaction levels, and its impact on their wellbeing and productivity (or lack of it).
We also measure adoption success: are people using that shiny new piece of software you\u2019ve provided for them, or are they still using the old one they know, understand and therefore prefer? Anecdotally, high adoption levels frequently correlate with high user satisfaction: people are generally happy when they\u2019re consuming new technology. Measuring Digital Experience can provide empirical evidence of this added value, bolstering CIOs\u2019 investment cases. It can also help identify users who are perhaps resistant, reluctant or having difficulties, making it easier to provide appropriate, targeted training and other support.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Our second new metric is Sentiment data. When a service event is triggered, we ask the user to share with us how they\u2019re feeling at that moment. In our experience, engaging with users directly and proactively while we\u2019re actually dealing with their issue produces response rates up to three times higher than CSAT. Plus, we\u2019ve found it builds confidence and helps restore good relations between the user and IT\/Operations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Together, the Digital Experience and Sentiment provide hard, empirical data about what\u2019s wrong, and what we need to do to change and improve things for people.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The XLA is a much-needed update and upgrades to the SLA in line with today\u2019s requirements. By directly addressing the UX as well as \u2018pure\u2019 IT service metrics, it provides an answer to the Performance Paradox we talked about earlier.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
More than that, it also goes some way towards resolving another familiar problem for IT leaders. The CIO Dilemma is the perennial conflict between investing in maintaining BAU with no IT issues and transforming the organisation\u2019s IT through innovation and new technology. The XLA provides hard, empirical data to support business cases: it tells us that if we invest in A, it will improve the UX by a factor of B, with all the productivity and wellbeing benefits we know flow from it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
For CIOs, this brings much-needed clarity, focus and objectivity to the debate, and helps maximise return on investment in terms of an improved experience not just for internal customers, but external ones, too.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Over time, this becomes a virtuous circle. The more we measure the UX, the better we understand what people want and need from their IT experience, allowing us to target investment in areas that improve the UX. For CIOs and other decision-makers, this also shows a clear path to value, further strengthening the business case and overall accountability.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
So no, we\u2019re not reading the last rites over the SLA just yet. By introducing the XLA, we\u2019re enhancing, strengthening and extending its usefulness, and making it fit for purpose in today\u2019s IT environment.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
To find out more about how we\u2019re using the XLA in our services, please follow the links below.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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