Service-level agreements (SLAs) need to be established so that customers and the help desk both know what is expected of them. You are working with your management team and the customers to establish appropriate SLAs and to determine which metrics will be used to measure and report the service levels. Based on these metrics, the results will determine whether you get bonuses or penalties, or even keep their business. There are also many cultural considerations involved when supporting an IT Help Desk environment in the international business world of today. Cross-cultural management is key to understanding many of the diversity considerations that come along with working with customers who speak different languages, work from different time zones, have various levels of system infrastructures within their organizations, work through political protocols and events that impact the economics of their organizations, and work on various types of financial transactions systems. These customers can be internal or external-facing as well