SLA

Overview

The Service Level Agreement (SLA) defines the service provider’s obligation to respond to the customer within a specified timeframe. Failure to meet these timeframes results in an SLA Breach, which can impact the organization’s reputation and customer satisfaction.

CommBox SLA management helps organizations define and control expected response times across customer conversations, ensuring consistent service levels and improved customer experience.

The system supports two SLA models: Hourly SLA and Business Day SLA, allowing organizations to choose the most suitable measurement based on their operational needs and service structure.

Hourly SLA is designed for real-time environments where response speed is measured continuously. It provides precise tracking of agent responsiveness, helping teams identify delays, maintain fast resolution times, and improve performance in high-volume or time-sensitive channels.

Business Day SLA is designed for organizations operating within defined working hours. It aligns SLA calculations with business calendars rather than continuous time, making it suitable for structured support teams and organizations that do not operate 24/7. This model provides more realistic service expectations while accounting for weekends, holidays, and non-working hours.

Together, these SLA models provide flexibility to balance operational accuracy with business reality, while maintaining clear visibility into service performance and compliance.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of SLA capabilities, including general and channel-specific settings.

Time Frame

CommBox supports two types of SLA measurements: Hourly SLA and Business Day SLA.

Hourly SLA

The Hourly SLA begins when a conversation enters Open status and continues until the agent provides the first response.

 A Secondary SLA is triggered each time a customer sends a new message and ends when the agent responds.

If a conversation is initially handled by an AI agent and then transferred to a human agent, the SLA starts from the moment of handover.

SLAs can be configured per communication channel, allowing specific channels to override the general SLA settings.

Business Day SLA

The Business Day SLA counts the entire day on which the conversation started, regardless of the specific time within business hours. Days when the business is closed are not included in the SLA calculation.

For example, if business hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and the SLA is set to 1 business day:

• A conversation started at 11:00 AM, and one started at 2:00 PM will both be marked as breached at 9:00 AM on the next business day.
• A conversation started at 6:00 PM (after business hours) will not be considered breached on the following day.

Business Day SLA Settings

The Business Day SLA is configured at the module level:

• 0 – Feature is disabled (default)
• 1–14 – Number of business days before breach

Note: SLA behavior is based on the configured Business Hours module for the organization.

Synchronous and Asynchronous

The SLA settings are separate between the synchronous and asynchronous channels. 

In synchronous channels such as Chat, customers expect immediate engagement, necessitating faster response times and shorter SLA periods. 

In asynchronous channels such as email, WhatsApp, or Facebook, customers do not anticipate instant responses, allowing for longer SLA periods.

Note that you may set specific SLA limits in each channel's settings.    

SLA Indicators

SLA Settings define the maximum First Response time and the Secondary Response time an agent must meet to avoid an SLA Breach. The first response SLA will have a “1” in the SLA icon, while the SLA for the secondary response will have a “2”. 

You can configure the system to display warnings based on the percentage of time remaining before a breach. The SLA icon will turn yellow as a warning or orange for critical urgency, indicating the time left until a breach. Hovering over the icon reveals the exact time remaining.

To illustrate the warning, assume that the SLA breach happens after the customer waits for 60 minutes without a response. If we set the first warning to 60 percent, the agent will see a small yellow marking by the conversation 36 minutes (60% of 60 minutes) prior to the SLA Breach.  

If we set the critical warning to 30 percent, the agent will see a small orange marking by the conversation 18 minutes (30% of 60 minutes) prior to the SLA Breach.     

Once a breach occurs, the icon turns red. Hovering over the icon or viewing the top of the conversation pane will display the time the customer has been waiting.

The Secondary SLA includes the time from the last customer message to the agent's next response.

Data analysis 

Team leaders and admins can monitor SLA performance in real time through the Dashboard and analyze historical data in the Insights section to gain a deeper understanding. 

Real-Time Dashboard

The agent section of the dashboard provides a snapshot of each agent's performance, with SLA breaches highlighted in red. Clicking on these alerts will display detailed information. (see sample below).

Insights:

In the Overview section of Insights, you can view the average response rate and compare it to previous periods across all channels (synchronous and asynchronous). 

Total - The percentage of conversations handled within SLA guidelines.

Average first response time – Total time from Open status till First Response divided by the total number of conversations  

Average secondary response time – Total time between the agent’s messages and the customer's messages, not including the first response time, divided by the total number of conversations   

In the Agent report, you can click on individual agents to review their recorded SLA performance.

SLA Settings

The following are the explanations for the general settings.

SLA target for first replies (In seconds) – The maximum time allowed for an agent to reply to initial conversations in asynchronous channels (WhatsApp, email, Texts, etc.).   

Synchronous SLA target for first replies (In seconds) – The maximum time the agent has to reply to initial conversations in Chat (synchronous) channels.   

SLA target for next replies (In seconds) – The maximum time allowed for an agent to reply to the last message from the customer in asynchronous channels (WhatsApp, email, Texts, etc.).   

Synchronous SLA target for next replies (In seconds) – The maximum time allowed for an agent to reply to the last message from the customer in Chat channels (synchronous channels).    

SLA Breach Orange Warning for first replies – Defines the percentage threshold that triggers an orange warning when the agent is very close to breaching the SLA for the first response.

SLA Breach Yellow Warning for first replies – Defines the percentage threshold that triggers a yellow warning when the agent is approaching the SLA breach for the first response.

SLA Breach Red Warning for next replies – Defines the percentage threshold that triggers a red warning when the agent is very close to breaching the SLA for the next response.

SLA Breach Yellow Warning for next replies – Defines the percentage threshold that triggers a yellow warning when the agent is approaching the SLA breach for the next response.

Business Day Warning Threshold – Defines the number of business days (1–14) before a warning is triggered. When the threshold is reached, the conversation summary box is highlighted in red. Partial days are counted as full days. Set to 0 to disable the feature (default).

SLA Channel Settings

SLA settings in the specific channel override the general SLA settings. 

SLA target for first replies (In seconds) – The maximum time allowed for an agent to reply to initial conversations in this channel.   

SLA target for next replies (In seconds) – The maximum time allowed for an agent to reply to the last message from the customer in this channel.