Monitoring Email - Sevice Level Agreements

Support for many products, whether it is software or hardware, can be done via email. A customer will send an email to a support email address containing a problem that they are encountering with their product. A support person will respond with an answer to the problem or multiple answers if the problem could be due to a number of things.

The company providing the support has agreements and contracts in place with the supplier/manufacturer of the product to ensure that a certain a percentage of the emails get answered in a certain period of time. This is known as GOS or Grade of Service. Grade of Service represents a certain number of emails answered in a certain number of seconds such as 20 email / 60 seconds. As well, a percentage of email must be answered in the first reply to ensure customer satisfaction.

With email monitoring, management is able to ensure their staff are answering emails in a timely manner and that the content of the email being sent back to the customer contains relevant information pertaining to the customer problem. Management are also able to make sure that the proper number of emails are being answered

Because revenue scales are sometimes worked into contracts based on Service Levels and the ability to answer questions on the first try, being able to monitor email for coaching purposes is a definite must.