A service level management system ensures that all IT Services delivered to customers comply with agreed levels of quality. It is about ensuring that Service Level Agreements are in place and are being met, measuring and reporting on the service levels, and constantly striving to improve the quality of service offered over time.
To do all of this, it is crucial to have the proper tools in place. The processes and systems that define service levels are outsourced to third-party companies. It is important to know how to manage them within your own SLM process.
The first step in setting up a SLM procedure is to identify what services are crucial to the business and establishing the appropriate metrics for success. This includes factors like effectiveness, user base, and design aspects. It is important to choose the technology expertise – a company specializing in one particular platform might be able to provide greater performance than a generalised service provider.
Once the SLA goals are established the teams need to create a plan to maintain them. This usually means the establishment of systems that track progress and alert the team of issues with achieving targets.
A well-designed SLM process also incorporates continuous improvement processes. These will help teams to take the information they collect, and identify ways to improve the processes that are causing them problems. For http://www.slm-info.org/ instance, if the NOC service fails to meet its SLA of answering calls within 30 seconds, it’s possible to identify the reason and fix it.