The Rise of Experience-Level Agreements (XLAs) in Practice: A Deep Dive into ITSM Transformation
David Pickering
Key Takeaways
- Experience-Level Agreements (XLAs) represent a major shift in ITSM: Unlike traditional SLAs that focus on technical metrics, XLAs prioritize the actual user experience.
- XLAs help drive productivity, satisfaction and retention through regular feedback and continuous improvement.
- Digital Employee Experience (DEX) is crucial for successful XLAs: Empowering IT teams with the right tools and analytics to enhance digital experiences enables organizations to improve business outcomes, customer service and engagement.
For decades, the backbone of IT Service Management (ITSM) has been the Service-Level Agreement (SLA). While effective for tracking the nuts and bolts of IT delivery, SLAs have one critical blind spot: they say little about how users actually feel about their IT experiences.
This is where Experience-Level Agreements (XLAs) and Digital Employee Experience (DEX) fill in the rest of the picture. They provide a new paradigm that's rapidly gaining traction, promising to transform ITSM by focusing on the human experience behind the numbers.
But what exactly are XLAs and how do they differ from traditional SLAs? Moreover, how does Digital Employee Experience factor into successful XLAs?
What are XLAs?
Experience-Level Agreements are a set of metrics and commitments designed to ensure that the end-user experience is consistently positive and meets (or exceeds) expectations.
While you should use XLAs and traditional SLAs in tandem, the latter focuses on technical performance and uptime. XLAs prioritize the user's overall experience, including factors like ease of use, responsiveness and emotional satisfaction.
By focusing on the user's perspective, XLAs help organizations align their services with user needs, driving satisfaction and loyalty.
Understanding how SLA, XLA and DEX work together
XLAs, SLAs and DEX work in tandem to provide you with a 360-degree view of your technical and user experience metrics.
| Description | Example metrics | |
|---|---|---|
| Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) | A contractual agreement between service providers and customers that define the expected service quality, availability and responsiveness. SLAs focus on technical metrics. |
|
| Experience-Level Agreements (XLAs) | A contractual agreement between providers and customers that focuses on end-user experience, measuring the quality of service from the user's perspective. XLAs include not just technical performance, but also factors like usability, accessibility and overall satisfaction. |
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Unlike SLAs and XLAs, Digital Employee Experience (DEX) is not another type of agreement. DEX refers to the quality of digital experiences employees have while performing their job functions. It encompasses the technology, tools and digital environments they interact with daily.
Based on their experiences across these tools and environments, a DEX score is created (which is measured as part of the XLA). A positive DEX is crucial for employee productivity, engagement and overall job satisfaction.
How DEX enables successful XLAs
Digital experience analytics are an important metric in the success of XLA's. By ensuring that employees have a positive digital experience, organizations:
- Improve productivity — When employees can work efficiently and effectively, they're more likely to deliver excellent service to customers.
- Enhance customer experience — A positive DEX often translates to a better customer experience, as employees are better equipped to meet customer needs.
- Drive business outcomes — By focusing on DEX, organizations can drive business outcomes, such as increased revenue, reduced costs and improved competitiveness.
Best practices for implementing XLAs
Implementing XLAs requires a careful, strategic approach to ensure that you not only measure user satisfaction effectively, but also drive meaningful improvements in service delivery.
By following the best practices below, organizations can successfully integrate XLAs into their operations and foster a culture centered on positive user experiences.
- Define clear user experience metrics: Identify the key metrics that you will use to measure user experience. These should be specific, measurable, and aligned with business goals.
- Leverage technology: Use advanced analytics, AI and machine learning to gather and analyze user data. These tools can help identify trends and areas for improvement. DEX tools enable you to gather and measure your IT experience across devices, users and the organization.
- Engage users: Regularly collect feedback from users through surveys, feedback forms and testing. This provides valuable insights into their needs and preferences. Ensure that surveys utilize AI to identify and highlight sentiment.
- Train and empower IT teams: Train your IT teams in user experience principles and give them the autonomy to make decisions that improve the user experience.
- Continuous improvement: Treat XLAs as a living document. Review it regularly and update it based on user feedback and changing business needs.
Challenges and lessons learned
Implementing XLAs isn’t just about new tools — it's a mindset/cultural change. Common hurdles include:
- Defining experience — What counts as a “good” experience? It can be subjective and varies across roles.
- Cultural buy-in — XLAs need sponsorship from leadership and buy-in from front-line IT teams.
- Continuous improvement — XLAs aren’t static. They require regular review and recalibration as user needs evolve.
- More than surveys — Surveys are just one method of measurement. Ensure that DEX tools are enabled to capture real technology metrics.
Organizations leading the XLA charge invest in regular feedback loops, co-design goals with business units and link experience outcomes directly to ITSM performance reviews.
The future: Why XLAs matter
In practice, XLAs and DEX are more than buzzwords — they’re the next evolution of service management. As technology becomes ever more entwined with business success, experience is the product. IT teams empowered by XLAs move beyond “keeping the lights on" to driving employee engagement, customer loyalty and strategic differentiation.
For any organization focused on ITSM transformation, embracing XLAs means listening harder, acting faster and thinking bigger about the real purpose of technology: enabling people to do their best work.
Read the Digital Experience Report to understand how DEX impacts productivity, satisfaction and retention.
FAQs
What are experience-level agreements (XLAs)?
XLAs are agreements that set goals and measure how users feel about their IT services and experiences. They focus on factors like usability, responsiveness and user satisfaction – rather than only technical performance.
How do XLAs differ from service-level agreements (SLAs)?
SLAs define expectations for service quality, uptime and technical performance. XLAs focus on the end-user experience, measuring satisfaction, ease of use and emotional impact. SLAs are technical, while XLAs are user-centric.
What is digital employee experience (DEX)?
Digital employee experience (DEX) refers to how employees interact with their digital tools and environments. DEX measures the quality of digital experiences that affect productivity, engagement and job satisfaction.
What metrics are used in XLAs?
Common XLA metrics include end-user satisfaction scores, net promoter score (NPS) and digital experience scores. These metrics reflect how users feel about IT services and their overall experience.
