A 2-hour answer SLA on questions cut new-member churn 16 points

A 2-hour answer SLA on questions cut new-member churn 16 points

A community tracked how fast questions got a first reply and found a cliff: questions answered within 2 hours led to members who stayed; questions left 6+ hours led to members who quietly left. We set a 2-hour first-reply SLA (service-level agreement) on the #help channel.

The SLA SOP:
— ☐ Unanswered questions auto-escalate to a mod ping at 90 min
— ☐ Rotating "on-call" mod per timezone block covers gaps
— ☐ Weekly report: % answered under 2h (target 90%)
— ☐ Any miss gets a 1-line post-mortem — pattern, not blame

We hit 88% under-2h within a month. 30-day retention for question-askers rose 48% to 64% — a 16-point lift. First impressions in a community are made at the speed of the first reply. Make it an SLA, staff it by timezone.

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