Sales and Marketing SLA Template
Four documents and four sheets that score both sides of the SLA off one lead export, with the response clock run in business hours.
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One Response Clause, Measured Two Ways
Winterbourne, 3,920 handed-off leads, H1 2026
The clause as written: first contact within 1 business hour for tier A and 1 business day for tier B, business hours being 08:00 to 18:00 local to the lead's territory, Monday to Friday, eleven company holidays.
| Tier | Leads | Wall clock | The SLA's own clock | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A, 1 business hour | 1,148 | 702 | 61.1% | 234 | 20.4% |
| B, 1 business day | 2,772 | 1,186 | 42.8% | 484 | 17.5% |
| All handoffs | 3,920 | 1,888 | 48.2% | 718 | 18.3% |
1,170 leads sit between the two columns
2,000 of the 3,920 arrived outside business hours, which is what happens when the form is open all night and the desk is not. 1,049 of those breach on wall time and comply under the definition both teams signed. No CRM computes a business-hours clock on a lead object, so the left column is the only one Winterbourne had ever seen.
Then the same computation indicts the target it just defended. Among leads that passed the clock, opportunity rate runs 18.0% under one wall-clock hour and 12.2% at twelve to forty-eight hours, a shortfall of 157 opportunities on leads that all complied.
Every sales and marketing SLA template is the same one-page form with the numbers left blank: deliver this many qualified leads a month, contact each one within four business hours, make five attempts before disposition. Filling the blanks takes an afternoon. What none of them mention is that no CRM computes a business-hours elapsed time on a lead object, so the clause both teams signed has never once been measured the way it is written.
So this pack computes it. On the worked example, two quarters of a field-service software company's leads, wall time puts 1,888 of 3,920 handoffs in breach at 48.2%. The agreement's own clock, 08:00 to 18:00 local to the lead's territory with the holiday list attached, puts 718 in breach at 18.3%. Half the leads arrive outside business hours, which is what happens when the form is open all night and the desk is not.
That clock clears sales of most of its apparent breaches, so the pack does the same arithmetic to marketing's number. Every rejection is classified before it counts as lead quality, and every recurring reason is tested as a candidate required field on one figure: how often sales accepted a lead that field would have blocked. The largest reason code usually fails that test, which is the result nobody expects and the reason these agreements never get amended. Pair it with lead routing rules, which decides which owner a qualified lead reaches.
What is in the pack
SLA Targets
One row per clause with its owing side, its committed value, and a value measured the way the clause is written
Breach Log
One row per computed breach, carrying the clause, the owing side, both values and the clock definition used
Follow-up Timing
Both clocks side by side per tier and territory, ending in the leads the agreement's own definition exonerates
Rejected Lead Reasons
Every reason code with the promotion test on it: leads a gate blocks, rejections cleared, accepted leads destroyed
SLA Agreement
Seven clauses with a computed breach count each, an amendment table, and what deliberately did not change
Qualification Definitions
Every criterion, and for each one whether it is a required field or an accuracy obligation, with the arithmetic
Dispute Procedure
An admissibility gate rather than a queue, two escalation rounds, and the list of things that cannot be disputed
How the Clock Is Computed
The five definitional inputs, three leads worked by hand, and what the exoneration costs when you check it
How it works
- 1
Send both halves
The agreement in whatever state it exists, and a lead export with created, handoff and first-touch timestamps, attempt counts, disposition, reason and territory.
- 2
Pin the clock down
Five things come out of the document before anything is measured: opening and closing time, working week, the specific holiday dates, whose time zone, and what starts the clock.
- 3
Score both sides
Response times run in wall time and in business hours, every rate gets both denominators, and every rejection lands in one of four classes before it counts as lead quality.
- 4
Amend with the trade attached
Each recurring reason is tested as a candidate required field, and an adopted one arrives with the volume number it costs, in the same version.
Frequently asked questions
What do I need before this is useful?
The agreement in any state, and a lead export with created, handoff and first-touch timestamps, logged activity counts, disposition, rejection reason and the territory on each lead. Send the free-text rejection comment as well as the picklist value, because the two disagree more often than people expect and the rate is a finding.
Our CRM already reports lead response time
It reports wall time, which is a different number from the one your agreement promises. In the worked example wall time shows 1,888 leads in breach and the agreement's own clock shows 718. Both are correct answers to different questions, so the pack reports both columns and the 1,170 leads between them.
Why can the CRM not just compute business hours?
The capability exists, on the wrong object. Salesforce business hours attach to cases, case escalation rules, entitlement processes and milestones, and HubSpot's SLA-hours properties only apply to help desk tickets. Support SLAs have needed this for twenty years. The lead object never got it.
Why not just require company size before handoff?
Because sales accepted 28.7% of the leads that gate would have blocked, and 53 of them reached opportunity. It is the largest rejection reason at 22.4%, and it still fails. A criterion overridden that often describes a field that is wrong, not a lead that is unqualified, so the fix is verifying it rather than dropping the lead.
Our acceptance rate looks healthy
Check its denominator. Accepted over dispositioned was 62.9% on the worked example and accepted over all handoffs was 54.2%, and the gap is 544 leads nobody closed out. That makes marketing's quality figure a function of sales' own disposition compliance, so tightening one clause moves the other without anyone's lead quality changing.
Can this run without an existing SLA?
Yes, and it is often the better order. The clauses get written from what the export shows the two teams are already doing, which beats importing benchmark response times nobody agreed to. You still need clean, deduplicated records, because the duplicate gate is only measurable once matching works.
Does this decide routing, scoring or what happens after acceptance?
No, and the boundary is deliberate. Which owner a lead reaches is a routing question, what an accepted lead does next belongs to pipeline hygiene, and leads arriving through paths that write no handoff event belong to a system of record map. What happens when sales disqualifies one instead belongs to reason codes and recycle timers.
Find out what your response clause actually says
Send the agreement and a lead export. The first thing back is two breach counts on the same leads and the number of leads between them.
Score both sides of my SLA