Have you ever felt that your agency put your account on the back burner? Or has your business’s performance been impacted by your agency's slow response? You’ve probably wondered what response times you should expect from your digital agency; how slow is too slow?
What Exactly Do We Mean by Response Time?
We want to separate project timelines from issue response times. This article addresses the issue of ticket response times and we’ll write another article about project deadlines in the future.
In regards to issue response times, it’s important to note the following nuance: there are two elements to the “response times” you can expect from a digital agency: response time itself (or acknowledgement time) and resolution time.
Response time is the time it takes for the agency to answer or acknowledge that your request has been received. They will then estimate the work involved and tell you how much time it will take to resolve or find a solution soon thereafter.
Resolution time is how much time it will take your agency to identify a solution, implement it, and mark the issue as resolved. For the sake of this article, we are combining response and resolution times into one as what’s important to you is how much time it takes to fix an issue.
Ticket response times depend on the level of urgency
When talking about response time, it’s essential to consider the urgency of the ticket you’ve submitted. The level of urgency will depend on the type of project, the industry, and from business to business. But, the urgency level must be clarified in your Service Level Agreement (SLA) so that the agency knows how quickly they need to react and so you know what to expect from your agency.
Ticket response times depend on the level of urgency
When talking about response time, it’s essential to consider the urgency of the ticket you’ve submitted. The level of urgency will depend on the type of project, the industry, and from business to business. But, the urgency level must be clarified in your Service Level Agreement (SLA) so that the agency knows how quickly they need to react and so you know what to expect from your agency.
Three levels of urgency are typically used to define projects/issues; urgent, mid-urgent, and minor.
1. Urgent issues
These issues can cause serious problems and failure for businesses. These are the Issues that materially affect the operations of the customer’s business or its service or product; or result in the loss of your potential customers, your reputation and branding, and the revenue. For example, if your site is down or transactions don't work. This is something that your agency needs to respond to and solve this kind of issue quickly and work to prevent these from happening.
2. Mid-level urgency issues
These issues disable or materially impair any critical function of the deliverables for which a workaround exists. These issues are challenging but not severe, people can still use your website, but some features are not functioning as expected; for example, when the Google Maps feature on your contact page doesn’t work. This could result in people missing out on crucial elements of your website, which might cause them to leave the website and not follow through with a potential purchase.
3. Minor issues
This is an issue with the website that does not significantly affect the functionality and has an immaterial impact on the business's operations or the marketability of its service or product. These are not the kind of issues that impact your business; for example, if there's a typo on the website on a specific page or the slider on the homepage is not working.
The Impacts of Slow Response Time on You and Your Business
Your agency’s response time can directly impact you, your business, and your performance, especially when it comes to those higher-urgency issues that put your business and reputation at risk. There are many ways that slow response times from your agency can impact you, but here are three of the most common impacts.
You don’t get enough time for QA and delivery is delayed
If the agency responds to the issue late or delivers the solution at the last minute, you might not have enough time to validate for quality assurance before launching it on your site. This could lead to either the launch being full of bugs, not functioning correctly and missing parts or having to push the timeline to launch further down the schedule.
Your performance is impacted
Your performance and ability to deliver projects on the schedule are sometimes completely reliant on your agency's performance and speed. If the agency isn’t pulling its weight, it puts trouble on your plate and adds a lot of stress for you as the person who is expected to deliver that project.
Trust will erode with your agency
Trust is one of the most valuable parts of a relationship between an agency and its clients. If the agency repeatedly can’t respect mutually set expectations and meet them to respond to you on time, you’ll lose trust in your agency and feel like you need to switch agencies, which will cost you more time and money (but might pay off in the long run).
Why Are Digital Agencies Slow to Respond?
Working with agencies is a two-sided process, which means slow response time isn’t always the agency's fault. Here are some of the most common reasons for slow response time from both sides.
Agency-driven reasons
- There might be a lack of staff at the agency.
- The agency doesn’t have a structure around the maintenance and support team, so they can not set up a dedicated team to follow up on the tickets and solve the client’s issue.
- The agency might have multiple projects and can not manage the workload when faced with many requests from different clients simultaneously.
- The agency cannot communicate effectively with the clients to get the brief from the client, understand the issue, suggest the right solutions, anticipate the reasonable amount of time for each ticket, and give the client an update on what is going on with the issue in each stage. Communication and expectation management should be a part of the agency culture.
Client-driven reasons
- Sometimes the clients can not prioritize and distinguish the level of urgency and always report the issues as urgent.
- Sometimes the clients can not communicate effectively with the agency and have trouble describing their issues to the agency, which could lead to misunderstandings and longer response times.
- The clients who don’t use the right communication channels get in contact with the agency quickly.
- The client might not use a suitable time to report an issue while expecting the agency to respond on time. For example, they submit a ticket after work hours and expect an immediate response.
- Clients are unaware of the contract terms they signed regarding time response, so they have unrealistic expectations regarding response times.
What Response Time Should You Expect from Your Digital Agency?
This big question here is: What response time should you expect? What’s the standard response time? By answering and understanding the reasons behind the answers to this question, you’ll be able to assess your current agency better, compare them against the standards and make more informed decisions for your business regarding your current agency. Even though response time depends on various factors and is different for every client and project, it’s essential to note that the agency should have an SLA that determines the amount of time needed for acknowledgement and resolution based on different levels of urgency. This helps ensure you always know when your agency will get to your project and resolve the issue.
Standard Aknowledgment Time
- If the issue is urgent and can cause a critical failure to your business, your agency should acknowledge receipt of your ticket in less than 2-4 working hours.
- If the issue has a medium level of urgency, the agency should acknowledge receipt of your ticket in less than a business half day.
- If the issue is not urgent and is around minor issues, the agency should acknowledge receipt of your ticket within 1 or 2 business days.
Standard Resolution Time
- If the issue is urgent and can cause a critical failure to your business, your agency should resolve the request or implement a workaround within 4-7 business days after acknowledgment of receiving the ticket.
- If the issue has a medium level of urgency, your agency should resolve the request or implement a workaround within 10-15 business days after acknowledgment of receiving the ticket.
- If the issue is not urgent and is around minor issues, your agency should resolve the request or implement a workaround within 2-4 weeks after acknowledgment of receiving the ticket.
How Symetris Accelerates Response time?
In our 18 years of experience, we’ve used many different methods, tools, and approaches to reduce our response time. We’re not in a position where we can proudly say that Symetris has a proven 50% faster response time than most other digital agencies.
SLA helps us to manage the expectations
As part of our contract, we have a detailed SLA, making everything clear in that document. We define the ticketing system, determine communication channels, describe the level of urgency, determine the expected acknowledgment time and resolution time for every level of urgency, and set realistic expectations for our clients.
We have A structure for support and maintenance teams
We organized our support and maintenance teams in a way that accelerates the process of responding to the tickets and providing solutions. Every member of the maintenance and support teams follows a flowchart when our clients submit a ticket. The flowchart specifies exactly what should be done at each step, what information is needed, and who is responsible for it. This structure makes it easier for us to communicate with the client without going back and forth repeatedly and reduces the time needed to acknowledge and resolve their issues.
Our communication skills rock!
One of the most remarkable skills and expertise of Symetris is our ability to communicate effectively with our clients. We are transparent in our communication; we don’t make assumptions. We always aim to understand the whole business of our clients, their objectives, values, and their visions and missions. If the client submits a ticket to the support team, our project leader first tries to understand the issue and then sends it out to the developer for a solution.
Waiting for a response can be nerve-wracking. The longer you wait the more your imagination starts to run wild and you start asking “how big of an issue is this for my business?” Understanding why slower response times happen, how they really impact your business, and what you can do about it can help you make more informed decisions when it comes to your digital agency. Are you looking for a digital agency that’s faster than everybody else? We’re here to help! Get in touch today to find out more about what we can do for you.
