What is an SLA?
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a written commitment from a support team to its customers (or its own management) about specific targets: response time, resolution time, uptime, and similar. SLAs are how support quality moves from "we try our best" to "we hit these numbers or there is a consequence".
Common SLA targets
Most B2B support SLAs include: a first response time target (often 1 hour for paid plans), a resolution time target (often 24 to 72 hours depending on severity), an availability commitment (often 99.9% uptime for the product itself), and a CSAT floor (often 90%).
Tiered SLAs
Larger contracts include severity tiers: a P1 outage gets a 15-minute first response, a P2 issue gets 1 hour, a P3 question gets 4 business hours. Severity is assigned by the customer or by the support team based on impact.
Tracking breaches
A breach is an SLA target missed. Some teams promise service credits on breach (1% of monthly fee per breach, capped at 100%). Others use breaches as an internal management signal. message.com's Reports API exposes SLA attainment per conversation, per agent, and per department.
See it working on message.com.
Unified inbox, grounded AI, flat pricing. 14 days free, no credit card.
Start free trial →