Examples of a phone call response time policy

November 14, 2018 12:25 PM

Can any of you provide examples of a policy for standard response time to telephone calls?

This is a policy for returning phone calls from an organization's clients. I'm asking for a friend, so I haven't looked myself online, but this person said they only found policies for e-mail, which the organization doesn't use. If this is something you need to MeMail (i.e., you're sharing an actual policy, not linking to something online, and it's lengthy) feel free or you can MeMail for an e-mail address. If you can't share the actual policy (which is the ideal) maybe you could tell me what your policy addresses instead. If additional information is needed or there are certain things to consider, feel free to mention that too. Thanks!

posted by unannihilated to Work & Money (5 answers total)

I have left voicemails with regulators who had explicit response times on their messages. For instance: I will return calls received before noon by end of business; I will return calls received before EOB by noon the following day.

I have never seen a formal written phone call return policy.
posted by suelac at 12:41 PM on November 14, 2018

Google "support SLA" for the major enterprise software providers and you can find examples. E.g. AWS, Redhat, Azure, Qualys, etc. These companies prefer you to raise a ticket using a web system, but if you pay extra they will pick up the phone. In which case, the SLA response times usually cover their responses to client phone calls too. Note this response time guarantee is literally what you're paying for with these companies. If you pay more you get a guarantee quicker responses. That may not be the right way to think about baseline expectations in whatever context this question is about.
posted by caek at 12:50 PM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Our SLA for customers says we will respond to all support inquiries within 4 hours, emergency within 2 hours, non-production-impacting queries within 1 day, measured in normal business hours (a call at 4:30 pm today gets answered the next morning at the latest). It isn't "written out" like in sentences, I can't copy and paste it because it's laid out in columns with specific definition for what qualifies for each timeline, and there's no specific wording about it (column header "Initial callback", value is like "<2 Hours"), but those are our requirements. Also note we consider a "call" to include email, support ticket submitted through the website, etc.
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:09 PM on November 14, 2018

SLA = Service Level Agreement. I try to return calls in 24 hours. Many calls can be resolved with email I got your call, and the widgets were shipped UPS yesterday, expected arrival Friday, but in many types of organization, a phone call is an opportunity to connect with a customer to strengthen the relationship, so send the email if you can't call promptly, then follow up with a call to make sure the widgets arrived and schmooze a little.
posted by theora55 at 3:06 PM on November 14, 2018

When I managed technical support for an organization, a voicemail got a service ticket, and the caller got a copy of the ticket by email, so all calls got a response promptly, many did not get a callback.
posted by theora55 at 3:08 PM on November 14, 2018