Things to Consider While Creating SLA Agreement for Route Planning Templates

Over 56% of the customers won’t purchase from your brand if they experience a poor delivery experience. 61% of the retailers consider the last mile an ineffective part of their delivery service business.

With these challenges affecting the delivery industry, multiple companies are promising customers quick one-day deliveries under the service level agreement (SLA) that helps them scale their conversions and deliver a quality customer experience.

SLAs can define your team goals and establish the company’s reputation for quality support and delivery service results. 

Based on your specific objective, you can create different SLAs for your customers and promise to deliver the baseline level of service.

Let’s go through the SLA agreement for route planning templates that can help you get a brief idea for your business.

What is an SLA? 

A service level agreement is a professional agreement that sets the standards for a customer service guarantee. The agreement can include the promised service’s availability, quality, or timeliness.

SLAs are a part of the larger contract or a standalone document issued by the companies that can deliver quality results.

Based on different criteria, SLAs are divided into three broad categories.

Different Types of SLA

1. Customer Service Level Agreement 

The customer service level agreement with the group or an individual sets a specific standard to deliver the desired support.

The contract includes the details about the service and the quality that both the parties agreed upon. For example, a delivery service can include contactless deliveries, deliveries based on ETAs, and other service benefits that the two entities agree on.

2. Internal Service Level Agreement

The internal service level agreement focuses on improving an organization’s in-house service operations. It’s not an uncommon service level agreement, as different companies integrate internal SLAs for smooth and productive business operations.

The SLA can be between different departments in the company that can work based on different rules and collaboration protocols for achieving the desired business outcomes.

For example, your logistics team and the delivery segment can have a specific work protocol that helps you improve your overall delivery processing.

Internal SLAs can be the internal customer service standards you have set for your employees but don’t formally commit to your target audience. It can help you increase the efficiency of your workforce and ensure that you can stand out from your competitors in the delivery industry.

3. Multilevel Service Level Agreement

A multilevel service level agreement splits into different levels that address different audiences based on different rules. A multilevel SLA has a corporate-level component applied to all the users and a standalone agreement covering a specific target audience.

For example, Amazon offers normal delivery for its wider audience, but with Amazon Prime, a specific set of audiences gets quicker deliveries.

It can help the company to provide a special status for the customers willing to pay a higher amount for quality service.

Based on your business requirements and goals, you can integrate different types of SLAs that can increase your delivery business efficiency and ensure that you can achieve better business outcomes.

But what’s the purpose of creating these service level agreements as a service provider and setting up service level agreement terms?

Why Should You Choose a Service Level Agreement?

A professional SLA provides the support team with a final goal they need to work towards and ensures customers that there is something they can rely on.

The agreement established a crystal clear objective for the customer support team and ensured they deliver quality customer experiences to your potential clients.  

The service companies codify policies regarding the speed of their employees to deliver the promised service, and if the service is not completed, the company offers service credits in exchange that can be availed by the customers later.

The service employees are accountable for delivering results based on the set standards and ensuring service performance is up to the mark. 

Your delivery service business can use different performance metrics to ensure that the organization delivers quality results and achieves the SLA goals.

The shorter response or wait time with the service can result in more happy and satisfied customers even if the SLAs are internal.

Once you are confident that you can deliver consistent quality services based on the SLAs, you can woo customers with the public guarantees that can create a solid impact in the industry and strengthen your brand image.

Including the SLA in the contract can put the customer’s mind at ease and assist them to think that they are assured of a great customer experience.

Your marketing team can promote the public SLAs to help you attract a wider audience base and achieve your desired business targets.

Key components of the different SLAs:

1. Description

   You need to include the details of the services that the end-user will receive and the defined protocols your team must follow to deliver the desired results.

2. Service

   Include where and when the customers or the receiver can get the agreed service results that can deliver an excellent experience and ensure that SLAs are agreed upon. 

   For example, in the case of customers’ service-based SLA, you can provide them live support or include different self-service or AI-powered chatbot options to deliver customers assistance beyond normal working hours.

3. Performance metrics

   Include the specific metrics that need to be tracked and measure the quality of the service support. The service level agreement can have a few key performance indicators like first response time, one-touch resolutions, full resolution time, hold time, and customer satisfaction score.

   By analyzing these factors, you can assure that your delivery workforce works according to the set service level agreement and can help create a productive environment.

4. Consequences

   The penalties are the unrated aspect of a service level agreement that the service provider needs to include. You must communicate with the recipient what will happen in case of unscheduled service outages or underperformance.

   You must shortlist different types of penalties based on the amount of downtime or service level to ensure that the penalties are suited according to the situation and are not arbitrary. Also, include the details if the breach happens from the other party. 

   Let’s discuss how to tackle a breach of the service level agreement and ensure that your delivery brand image isn’t affected.

5. Overview

   You must include different parties involved in the agreement and an effective brief about the objectives and outlining the services being promised.

The summary should be crisp and concise and state the vendor’s promised services.

How to Tackle a Breach of SLA?

Strengthen your guards for handling breaches once you integrate service-level agreements in your business workflow. 

When things go downhill and don’t go as per your plan and the agreed-upon service terms, you must find a foolproof alternative to cover up the non-compliance.

The “breach of contract” can harm your brand, and the violation of the SLA can result in loss of trust and degradation in brand value.

Integrate a robust process to deal with breaches. Set up automated alerts in the support software when the agreed terms are not met. 

The notifications should be directed to the superior, who can assess the severity of the breach and think about the preferred action plan.

Here’s what can be done to avoid future breaches.

• If the individual service provider cannot fulfill the SLA, the employee needs more training and guidance.

• If the breaches have a low intensity, then you must integrate a robust service strategy that can help your service employees to focus on important aspects and free up their time.

• If the breaches are because of something larger, issues can result in unscheduled downtime. In this situation, you must rethink the terms and conditions of the SLA and work on implementing a feasible service condition.

Look at a few SLA examples you can use as templates for your business and integrate them into your business ecosystem.

Some Examples of the Service Level Agreement Template

A professional SLA involves a detailed description, so it’s great to use a template that can help you simplify creating an SLA agreement.

1. PandaDoc

The company offers a standard SLA template that you can use for your delivery industry. It includes a detailed chart that you can use for outlining the details and ensuring you create a professional SLA.

From the role and duties of the drivers to the service credits, the templates include the different details you can use for your business.

You can copy-paste the agreement details or download the template document from the site to help you with the execution process.

2. Rocket Lawyer

The professional SLA template created by Rocket Lawyer helps you minimize the time and effort in creating a tailored delivery service-based SLA that you can use for your business.

You need to enter the state of your business operations and the basic details about your company, agreement, receiver, and other vital information about the SLA, and the system can deliver your well-vetted SLA for your business.

You can download the file and integrate the official agreement into your business ecosystem for further processing.

3. Template.net

The platform provides a simple, comprehensive, and free SLA template to help you integrate the agreement into your business ecosystem. The pre-filled form is simple to edit, and the sections cover common client support metrics like client satisfaction rate, resolution rate, and call handling time.

You can use the above-listed templates for free and ask your lawyers or consultants to review the first drafts.

You can also create your own SLAs for the delivery business to deliver a quality customer experience and help you attract more customers.

Once you attract more customers and promise a customer-based SLA that involves quality delivery service, you must ensure that your delivery driver and management team have access to powerful software for streamlining route planning and optimized delivery operations.

But out of hundreds of options available, it can be overwhelming for you to filter out one professional route planning and optimization software that can improve your service levels and deliver quality delivery planning and optimization results.

Upper Route Planner Can Streamline Your Delivery Processing

Upper Route Planner is a leading route planning and optimization software that stands out from multiple other top route optimization software because it combines premium features and reasonable price options.

You can automate the software’s dispatching, management, and scheduling within a few clicks to deliver optimized and quality results.

You can upload delivery addresses from Excel and start the multiple-stops routing process. 

The SaaS service-based software provides a smooth and intuitive interface that can simplify your route optimization ecosystem and assist you in creating multiple routes at once.

Avail of the 7-day trial period now and ensure you can boost your delivery business options to achieve your desired business outcomes.