Service standards are a commitment by the organization to provide a certain level of service to clients. These are usually in areas such as communications, access, timeliness, interactions between staff and clients, and costs. For example, answering telephone calls within six rings nine times out of ten could be a standard. Consistency counts with service standards. Clients don't want great performance one day and lousy service the next. A client whose call is answered on the first ring and then locked in 'voice mail jail' for ten minutes won't consider that 'on average' good service was delivered