Mortgage broker SLA template

Service level agreements have a bad reputation in small firms, mostly because they are written as promises to clients and then quietly broken. Used differently they are one of the more useful internal documents a brokerage can have: a set of agreed maximums that tell everyone what "on time" means, so that lateness becomes visible rather than debatable.

This is a template to adapt, with commentary on where firms usually set the numbers wrong.

Three separate agreements, not one

Do not write a single document. Write three, because they have different audiences and different consequences.

The internal SLA governs what your team owes each other: how quickly an administrator picks up a case handed over by an adviser, how quickly a query is answered, how quickly a file check is returned. Breaches here are managed internally.

The client SLA governs what you tell clients to expect. It must be conservative, because you will be held to it and because under-promising costs you nothing.

The third is not an SLA you write but one you record: observed lender and third-party turnaround times. You cannot commit anyone else to anything, but you can measure them, and those measurements are what make the other two documents realistic.

Template: internal service levels

Adapt the placeholders to your firm's working pattern. Express everything in working hours or working days and define your working day explicitly.

New enquiry allocated to an adviser: within NUMBER working hours of receipt.

First contact attempt on a new enquiry: within NUMBER working hours of allocation, with a second attempt at a different time of day within NUMBER working hours if the first fails.

Case handed from adviser to administrator: acknowledged within NUMBER working hours, and either accepted or returned with a stated reason within NUMBER working hours.

Documents received from a client: checked for legibility and completeness within NUMBER working hours, with any problem raised with the client the same day.

Application packaged and submitted once all requirements are met: within NUMBER working days.

Lender condition or query received: passed to whoever must act on it within NUMBER working hours.

Internal query from a colleague on a live case: answered within NUMBER working hours.

Pre-submission file check requested: returned within NUMBER working days.

Client complaint received: passed to the responsible person immediately and acknowledged in line with your firm's complaints procedure.

Template: what you tell clients

Keep this short and put it somewhere the client will see it more than once — the engagement material and the footer of your update emails.

We will attempt to contact you within NUMBER working hours of your first enquiry.

We will answer emails and voicemails within NUMBER working hours during our normal working hours of TIMES on DAYS.

Once your application is submitted, we will update you at least every NUMBER weeks, whether or not there is news.

If something goes wrong or a lender declines, we will tell you the same day we find out.

If your usual adviser is unavailable, NAMED ALTERNATIVE will pick up your case, and you will be told who that is.

Note what is missing: any promise about how long a lender takes. Never commit to a third party's timescale.

Setting the numbers honestly

Use your own history as the baseline

The instinct is to write aspirational numbers. Resist it. An SLA that is breached routinely is worse than none, because it teaches everyone that the document is decorative.

Instead, measure what you currently do for a month, take roughly your existing eightieth percentile, and set that as the standard. It will feel unambitious. It will also be met, which means breaches become genuine signals. Tighten it once it is being met comfortably.

Two numbers to think hardest about

Two specific numbers deserve care. First contact speed on new enquiries has an outsized effect on conversion, so it is worth setting tight and resourcing properly. Response time to existing clients is where firms over-promise; a four-hour commitment sounds impressive and is very hard to sustain through a busy Tuesday with two appointments.

Cover, absence and the out-of-hours question

An SLA that only works when everyone is in is not an SLA. Write down explicitly:

• Who covers each adviser's cases during leave or illness, by name.
• At what point of absence cover kicks in — same day, or after a day.
• What the covering person is authorised to do, and what waits.
• How clients are told, and by whom.
• What happens to enquiries arriving outside working hours, including whether an automatic acknowledgement goes out and what it says.

Be careful with out-of-hours acknowledgements. If yours says someone will be in touch shortly, and shortly means Monday morning, rewrite it.

Measuring breaches without creating a blame culture

Log breaches, but log the cause alongside them. Most breaches in a brokerage are structural rather than personal: two advisers off in the same week, an unusual volume spike, a system outage, a case handed over incomplete.

Review the log monthly and ask one question — was this a capacity problem, a process problem or an individual problem? Only the third is a performance conversation, and it is the least common of the three.

A useful habit is to look at what was late rather than at how often things were late. Consistent lateness at one specific handover point tells you exactly where to spend your attention.

Where this touches regulation

Response times, complaint handling and communication standards are areas where your firm has obligations, and Consumer Duty puts weight on whether clients are properly supported rather than on whether you published a document.

Complaint handling in particular has defined requirements around acknowledgement, timescales and referral rights to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and your SLA must not contradict them. If you are an appointed representative, your network almost certainly sets its own standards for these, and theirs take precedence over anything you draft.

Check the specifics with the FCA Handbook or your compliance support rather than lifting numbers from a template. This document is an operational tool; it is not a substitute for your complaints procedure or your compliance policy.

Keep it to two pages

An SLA nobody can remember does not change behaviour. Two pages, reviewed twice a year, with the numbers on a single card that sits near the people who have to meet them. That is the whole implementation.