Carriers & SLA
SLA follow up in practice: how to make sure carriers deliver what they promised
Contracted delivery times and actual delivery times are rarely identical. Systematic SLA follow up is the difference between finding the deviations and quietly subsidising them.
Published
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8 minutes
Written by
The PineappleAI analysis team
What an SLA actually commits to
Every carrier contract contains a service level agreement that defines what counts as an on time delivery. The definition varies:
- Delivery within a set number of calendar days
- Delivery within a set number of business days from collection
- Delivery by a stated hour on a stated day
Deviations against the SLA are not unusual. They are, however, often claimable, meaning you may be entitled to compensation if you can evidence them.
Why they are rarely identified
Detecting an SLA deviation requires matching three data sources against each other: your order data, the carrier's tracking data and the contract annex. Without a systematic flow for that matching, deviations disappear into the noise.
Most carriers report their own SLA performance as an aggregated monthly figure. That aggregate can look acceptable while specific product categories, destination postcodes or weekdays consistently underperform.
What you should measure
Actual delivery time per order, not just the status "delivered", but the timestamp.
SLA performance per carrier and per segment, filtered by product category, destination and dispatch day.
Frequency of failed delivery attempts, since each failure costs both time and the associated fees.
Fuel surcharge deviation, actual application against the calculation base defined in the contract.
How to handle the deviations
- Document every deviation with order number, dispatch date and actual delivery timestamp.
- Aggregate monthly against the contracted SLA definition.
- Claim the credit where the contract allows it. Most agreements contain a claims mechanism.
- Use the data in negotiation. A systematic SLA history gives you a position when the contract comes up for renewal.
This is not about being difficult with carriers. It is about keeping the agreement live on both sides. A carrier that knows its customer measures SLA carefully has every incentive to deliver against it.
Where this comes from
Everything above is drawn from the same analytical work the intelligence layer does every month: reading a business against its own baseline, pricing what it finds conservatively, and following each finding until it is actioned or ruled out.
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