Glossary

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Glossary / Evaluation and implementation guide

Handshake SLA

A handshake SLA is a practical label for a two-way service level agreement at a workflow handoff, most often marketing-to-sales: marketing commits to deliver leads meeting agreed quality criteria, and sales commits to act on them within a defined time, such as first touch within 24 hours.

Both sides have measurable obligations, which distinguishes it from a one-way response-time promise.

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A practical example

Example: marketing agrees to route only leads scoring above a defined threshold with complete firmographic fields; sales agrees to attempt contact within one business day and log the outcome, with weekly compliance reporting.

What to evaluate before investing

  • Confirm the platform can track both directions: lead quality rejections and sales response times.
  • Check whether breaches trigger alerts or escalations automatically, not just reports.
  • Verify agreed criteria are encoded as fields or rules, not documented only in a slide.

Limitations and tradeoffs

A handshake SLA requires genuine negotiation and periodic renegotiation; imposed targets tend to be gamed rather than met.

Plan your next step with MeshLine

Connect this decision to your automation, organic marketing and customer lifecycle management. In a MeshLine demo, discuss your existing tools, the scope you need and how to measure the result.

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