The Unlikely Love Affair Between BT and XLAs

12 September 2024/Blog

Sean Burkinshaw and Natasha Young

Everyone at BT is positively giddy about XLAs (Experience Level Agreements). Yes, it’s true—a tier-one service provider like us has discovered that customer sentiment is just as important as our contractual performance. Who knew?

Success at BT is a delicate dance between delivering stellar service and ensuring our customers feel warm and fuzzy about it. But let’s face it: crafting and implementing XLAs is like trying to build a rocket ship in your garage—intensive and slightly chaotic. With a staggering number of customers, we quickly realized that without a solid strategy to scale, we’d be buried under a mountain of paperwork and feedback forms. Spoiler alert: we’d rather not.

Uptime, Downtime, Fix Time—And Now, Experience Time!

Let’s be honest: BT knows its way around traditional SLAs. We’re the champions of uptime, downtime, and fix-time. But here’s the kicker—these SLAs, while reliable, are starting to feel about as relevant as a flip phone in an iPhone world.

Imagine being the shopkeeper who values a 99.9% uptime SLA. Sure, that sounds great, but who cares if the 0.1% downtime happens during the 3 a.m. stock check?

What they really need is to be confident that they can process payments when customers want to buy things? Reliability? Quickness? Ease of use? Now we’re talking!

Theory: The Sweet Promise of XLAs

Let’s circle back to XLAs. The theory is tantalizingly simple—everyone loves it! Who wouldn’t want to focus on what customers actually need from their technology? Gather some SLAs, toss in a dash of monitoring data, sprinkle audience feedback on top, and voilà! You’ve got yourself a delightful recipe for success.

Easy, right?

Reality Check: The Cold, Hard Truth

Now, for the reality check. Sure, everyone is excited—until you realize that our organization has more customers than a popular coffee shop on a Monday morning. We are talking about literally thousands of customers.

Implementing XLAs for just one customer took an age, and without a manual to guide us, we learned a lot through trial and error. The positive feedback was great, but the question of how to scale kept us awake at night (and not in a good way).

Let’s just say, if we were waiting for this to be a quick win, we’d be taking a leisurely stroll into retirement.

A Model: Understanding Our Audience

After much brainstorming, we discovered that not all IT services are created equal. We divided our audience into three groups:

Vital: This group can’t function without IT. Picture a nurse in a hospital—if the IT fails, chaos ensues. Lives are at stake! They need XLAs like a fish needs water.
Important: Here, IT is essential, but the wheels keep turning, albeit a little slower. A retail chain might experience hiccups with payment processing. However, the customers are blissfully unaware if the registers are still ringing. They could benefit from XLAs, but it’s not a life-or-death situation… yet.
What IT? And then some might not even realize IT exists. Picture a library with a phone buried under a stack of books. Feedback? Good luck getting a response! They need a reliable service, but we’re unsure how much an XLA investment would pay off here.

Internal vs. External: Is it the same dance?

We think that the same principles apply internally. Payroll down? That’s vital. Everyone wants their paycheck on time, and no one wants to deal with the fallout when the IT team misses the mark.

Our Learnings at BT

Regardless of the customer type—internal or external—here’s what we’ve taken to heart:

Engage Early: Build XLAs from the audience’s perspective. Get buy-in from key decision-makers before you dive in. Trust us; it saves you a lot of headaches later.
What Are XLAs, really? Set the record straight. Explain what XLAs are and what they are not. This will save you from people asking, “Are we ditching SLAs?” or “Is it just a new name for CSAT?” Spoiler: No.
No Benchmarks, please: When folks hear “XLAs” and numbers, they want to set targets. No, no, no! XLAs are about understanding audience perspectives and enhancing their experience, not about hitting arbitrary goals.

Our Conclusion: A Journey Worth Taking

XLAs are a journey, and let’s be honest—they’re still in their toddler phase, learning to walk and talk. It’s not as simple as the theory suggests, but the potential to improve lives through our services is worth every ounce of effort. As a community, we should embrace this journey, even if it means navigating a few bumps along the way. What’s a good adventure without a bit of chaos?