Set response targets your team can actually keep.
An SLA (service level agreement) in Zoho Desk sets the time your team has to respond to and resolve each ticket. Once a policy applies to a ticket, Zoho Desk tracks the clock, highlights tickets at risk and escalates them to the right person when a deadline is close or missed. This guide covers how SLA policies work, a starting structure you can adapt, escalation design and the mistakes that make SLA data unreliable. It is part of our Zoho Desk guide.
Create SLA policies in Zoho Desk under Setup > Automation > SLAs. Each policy sets first response and resolution targets by priority, applies to tickets that meet criteria such as channel or customer category, runs on business or calendar hours, and can escalate overdue tickets through several levels.
Managers can also build a custom view of SLA-violated tickets to step in directly. Zoho summarizes these capabilities on its escalations and SLA page.
The table below is an example to adapt, not an industry standard. Your targets should match what you have promised customers in contracts or on your website.
| Priority | First response | Resolution | Typical tickets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent | 1 business hour | 4 business hours | Outages, data loss, anything stopping the customer's business |
| High | 4 business hours | 1 business day | Major features broken, issues for key accounts |
| Normal | 1 business day | 3 business days | Standard how-to and configuration requests |
| Low | 2 business days | 5 business days | Questions, feature requests, minor issues |
SLA timers depend on the business hours and holiday lists configured in your organization settings, so set those up before any policy. If you support customers in several time zones or offer extended hours to some clients, create separate business hours for them.
Customer categories let you give different groups different commitments. A common setup is a standard policy for most customers and a faster policy for clients on a premium support plan.
Go to Setup > Automation > SLAs and create a new policy.
Name it after who it serves, such as Standard support or Premium support.
Set the criteria that decide which tickets it applies to.
Enter first response and resolution targets for each priority level.
Choose business hours or calendar hours for the timers.
Configure escalation levels and who is notified at each one.
Activate the policy and check its position if you have more than one, so tickets match the right policy first.
Escalations work best in a few clear levels:
Before the breach: a reminder to the ticket owner while there is still time to act.
At the breach: a notification to the team lead, who can reassign or step in.
After the breach: a notification to the support manager for tickets that remain overdue.
Keep each level to the people who can act on it. Copying managers on every early warning trains them to ignore alerts, which defeats the point of escalation.
| Use an SLA when | Use a supervisor rule when |
|---|---|
| A time commitment to the customer is involved | You want a periodic check on tickets regardless of SLA status |
| You need response and resolution due times and breach reporting | You want to act on tickets stuck in a status, such as on hold or awaiting the customer |
| Escalation should follow fixed levels | The action is housekeeping, such as reminders or auto-closing |
Most teams use both. See our guide to automating ticket workflows in Zoho Desk for how supervisor rules fit alongside the other automation tools.
Track the share of tickets responded to and resolved within target for each priority, plus the number of overdue tickets and average response times. Zoho Desk reports can be scheduled to arrive by email, and connecting Desk to Zoho Analytics lets you show SLA performance next to customer satisfaction and ticket volume trends in one dashboard.
Go to Setup > Automation > SLAs. From there you can create policies, set response and resolution targets by priority, choose business or calendar hours and configure escalation levels.
Yes. Policies apply to tickets that meet criteria you define, such as the customer, customer category or channel, so premium clients can have faster targets than standard customers.
They do if the policy uses business hours. Timers then count only during the working hours and holidays set in your organization settings. Policies on calendar hours run continuously.
Zoho Desk marks the ticket as overdue and runs the escalation levels you configured, such as notifying a team lead or manager. Managers can also review all SLA-violated tickets in a custom view.
SLA policies are only useful when they reflect what you have actually promised. ABR is a Zoho Premium Partner that sets up Zoho Desk as part of wider Zoho One implementations. We map your support process first, then configure departments, rules, SLAs and the help center to match it.