Each of us as a customer receives services from different service providers. But the important question is what are the mutual obligations of each of us and how can we pursue our rights from the service provider in case of a problem? To answer this question, you need to be familiar with the service level agreement or SLA.

When you buy a SIM card, install Internet for your home or office, or get a hosting company or server to run your site, they guarantee to provide you with their services under certain conditions. But it is natural that sometimes a problem arises in between. Therefore, as a user and recipient of services, you must know your rights so that you can follow up.

The service provider company must also have the necessary forecasts. Therefore, an agreement is signed between the two parties. It does not matter whether you are a natural person or a legal entity.

Today we’re going to talk about Service Level Agreement, also known as SLA or Service Level Agreement, and see what the details are.

What is SLA?

The first thing we need to do is see what SLA stands for.

SLA stands for Service Level Agreement. In this agreement, it is clear what rights the customer has towards the service provider company and what his expectations should be. In addition, it is clear what standards the service provider should include to provide the quality required by the client.

In this agreement, it should be explained very clearly and in simple language what kind of service the customer will receive and what kind of rights he has against the service provider in case of any problems.

In general, two important items are specified in the provisions of the SLA:

1. Criteria and metrics necessary to measure the level of services provided
2. Compensation according to agreed standards that the servicer failed to meet

For this reason, customers may have a different SLA contract according to the fee paid and the service received. Although this agreement can be in different fields, it is mostly in the field of internet services, IT and technology.

What are the types of SLA contracts?

As we said, there are different types of service level agreement. In the following, we will talk more about the types of SLA examples:

Service-Based

When we talk about service customers, it means that all these customers are in the same service level agreement. In this case, all customers receive the same and similar services from the service provider under certain conditions. For example, we can refer to the SLA contract between you and one of the mobile SIM card service providers.

Customer-Based

The number of this agreement, as it is known, revolves around the customer and in other words, it is related to a specific customer and all the services used by him. In this type of SLA, the relationship between the supplier and the customer is specified in detail and is not a comprehensive agreement.

For example, a company may enter into an agreement with an IT service provider that manages their payment and banking systems, detailing their relationship and specific expectations. This agreement is Customer-Based.

Multi-Level

The number of this type of SLA agreement refers to different levels of service that are received by different groups of customers of the same service.

After understanding what SLA is and knowing the types of SLA agreement, now it’s time to see why this agreement is very important and we should have it as a customer.

Do not underestimate the importance of the SLA contract!

In the first stage, this contract is good for the providers of various services; Because it helps them to better manage customer expectations and define different levels of service delivery that they can adhere to.

Undoubtedly, customers also need this agreement and to master it. As we said, in the SLA, the level of services received and their characteristics are described in detail; Therefore, by mastering the SLA, the client is aware of his rights in case of problems!

Important items in the SLA contract

So far we have talked about service level agreement in general. In this section, we want to see what are the most important parts in the SLA example. These options include:

• Explaining what the service provider does Importance of SLA agreement
• Clear descriptions of stakeholders and their responsibilities
• Service quality standard and timing related to it
• How to monitor service performance and notifications
• Compensation for non-compliance with the provisions of the agreement
• Terms of termination, force majeure or ineffectiveness of the clauses of the agreement
• Special cases and exceptions
• How to provide security
• Risk management and exit plan from critical problems
• Defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (in some organizations that require these KPIs)
• Exchange of confidential information

What are Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and how is it different from SLA?

What is kpi? To be able to measure anything quantitatively, you need to specify a series of indicators. These measures are called Key Performance Indicators, abbreviated as KPI.

Since a series of criteria are supposed to be specified in the sample SLA contract to measure the quality of the services received, some confuse KPI with SLA. Although these two criteria have overlaps in general, there are major differences between them.

While SLAs define the general agreement and standards of service provided between the service provider and the customer, KPIs are set to measure and monitor different levels of performance. In fact, key performance indicators show the level of efficiency and success in achieving organizational goals and customer expectations.

SLA contract performance measurement criteria

As we said, there are metrics and indicators to measure the quality of the SLA contract sample, which cover various cases.

You can see these metrics below:

Availability and uptime percentage in SLA

The duration of service implementation (or service stability) and how long the customer had access to it (Availability). Uptime is usually specified as a percentage and generally tracked and reported each calendar month or billing cycle.

Note that this percentage is usually expressed as 9.99, but it can never be 100; Because there is always room for the unpredictable.

Specific performance benchmarks

Benchmarking means that the actual performance is periodically compared with a series of criteria.

Service provider response time

The amount of time it takes for a service provider to respond to a customer’s problem or request. Larger companies may set up a service desk to answer customer questions.

The service desk is a center for the will of information, management of requests and tickets based on SLA, automation, etc.

Time to solve the problem

The time required to resolve a problem after notifying the service provider is also specified in the terms of the SLA contract.

Leave rate

Abandonment rate refers to the percentage of calls that are not answered in the queue of customers.

Business results

These KPIs are used to determine how service providers are impacting business performance.

Error rate

The percentage of errors in a service, such as coding errors or time periods lost in receiving the service from the customer.

Time is back

The time it takes for the service provider to resolve the issue after receiving it.

Problem rate

Count or percentage of errors in major services. Problems such as incomplete backups and restores, programming errors/reworks, and missed deadlines for problem resolution are explored in this section.

Technical quality

In outsourced application development, technical quality is measured by commercial analysis tools that examine factors such as application size and coding problems.

Conclusion

Each of us, as a natural person or in the form of a company, receives the services we need from different service providers. Therefore, it is natural to expect the quality of the services received to be at the desired level.

In order to know what rights we have and what we need to check, an agreement is signed between us as the recipient of the service and the service provider, which is called the SLA contract or the service level agreement.

In this article, we talked completely about this contract and the details in it. There are important things that you should receive from the service provider company, and in case of problems, you can know your rights according to this contract.

If you have any questions about this, be sure to ask.