Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are essential for clearly communicating expectations and requirements to all stakeholders. They outline what is important and what is needed to meet baseline expectations. Here are some common examples:
- Response Time for Technicians:
- A technician will make first contact within 2 hours of receiving the initial request, provided the request is submitted during regular business hours.
- EFTPOS/Card Payment Requests:
- All requests related to EFTPOS/Card Payments will be triaged within 20 minutes of the initial request, if submitted during regular business hours.
- Service Uptime:
- This service will maintain an uptime of 99.99%. Any service disruptions will not exceed:
- 8.6 seconds per day, or
- 1 minute per week, or
- 4 minutes and 21 seconds per month, or
- 52 minutes and 9 seconds per year
- This service will maintain an uptime of 99.99%. Any service disruptions will not exceed:
These are a form of KPI that ensures that what is important to all the stakeholders is measured and meet. Typically, these provide the minimum guarantees that the stakeholders will expect as the “worst case scenario”1. This ensures that the service provider is kept accountable and has automated systems in place to measure and monitor the metrics for the SLAs.
By understanding and implementing SLAs, service providers can effectively manage customer expectations and continuously improve their service delivery.
What happens in a breach of an SLA?
The breach of a Service Level Agreement (SLA) can range from minor and informational to critical, requiring urgent attention. It’s essential that all parties understand the importance and severity of an SLA breach. Additionally, it may be beneficial for each party to agree on appropriate penalties. Here are the penalties that Microsoft offers for Exchange Online:
| Uptime Percentage | Service Credit |
| < 99.9% | 25% |
| <99% | 50% |
| <95% | 100% |
This means that if during the billing period, the service is less available that 95% of the time, you will get 100% of your service fee back as a credit. That is pretty good incentive for the service provider to ensure that the service is as reliable as possible but also shows to the customers how reliable they can expect the overall service.