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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 7, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It's the SLA (Service Level Agreement) that the customer service company set up with the brand.

I don't know what company you're emailing, whether it is large or small, but it is likely they outsource some of their support to a multi-client service desk that can handle tier 0 or tier 1 requests. The company is paying for a 3-4 day SLA, and if the service desk goes over that length of time there are penalties. Because the multi-client service desk has a multitude of clients, each with a different cadence for emails, the service desk will prioritize emails according to SLA, ensuring all emails are answered with the least financial penalty to the service desk.

I don't have any experience with 3-4 day SLAs (that seems excessive to me) but I have seen emails sit in a queue all day, getting answered by the night guys at 10 PM, because the SLA was 24 hours and other companies had <2 hour SLAs.