A service level management system ensures that all IT Services provided to customers comply with agreed levels of quality. It also includes making sure that Service Level Agreements are in place and being fulfilled, assessing and reporting on service levels, and constantly striving to improve service levels over time.
To accomplish all of this, it is crucial to have the appropriate tools in place. Most often, the processes and systems that determine service levels are outsourced to third-party firms. Therefore, it is essential to understand how to manage them in the context of your own SLM processes.
The first step in setting up an SLM procedure is to identify what services are important to the company and establishing the appropriate metrics for success. This usually involves taking into consideration factors like efficiency as well as user base and design aspects. It is important to choose the right technology expertise of a company that is focused on specific platforms may be able to guarantee higher performance levels than a generalised service provider.
Once the SLA targets are set the teams need to create an action plan to meet them. This usually involves setting up systems that can track the progress of the team, and then automatically notify the team when there are issues with achieving targets.
In addition, a solid SLM process will include continuous improvement processes. These will help teams to take the information they collect, and then find ways to improve the processes that cause them issues. If, for instance, an NOC service fails to meet its SLA of answering phone calls in 30 seconds, it should be possible identify the root cause and correct it.