Service level agreement (SLA)
What is a service level agreement (SLA)?
A service level agreement, or SLA, is the part of a contract that states how quickly a supplier answers a request, how quickly it fixes the problem, and during which hours those times apply. It also sets the severity levels, the channel for reporting, what falls outside the scope and what happens when a deadline is missed. Without it, fast response means two different things to the two sides.
Example
A shop signs a maintenance contract with three severity levels. Critical means the site does not open or an order cannot be completed; high means a broken form or a wrong price on one page; low means a change of text or an image. Each level carries two clocks: one for the response, one for the fix. The numbers below are illustrative and are agreed per project.
A two-working-hour response on a critical issue means a person replies within two hours and the request gets a reference number. An eight-working-hour resolution means the shop is selling again within eight hours, even if that is a workaround while the real repair is written. The two clocks are different promises, and a contract that promises only the first can be honoured perfectly while the shop stands still.
The credit is the third line. If the agreement returns 10 per cent of the monthly fee when a deadline is missed, the credit is a tenth of one maintenance instalment — rarely enough to cover even an hour of lost sales. A credit shows whether a supplier believes its own deadlines. It is not compensation.
Why it matters for a business
With nothing written down, priority is decided afresh every time, and it usually goes to whoever calls most often. An SLA moves that argument into the contract before there is a problem, and gives both sides one definition of urgent.
The second thing it settles is scope: which repairs sit inside the monthly fee and which changes are new work, quoted separately. That is where most disputes about retainers begin. We put the times we accept into the website maintenance contract after we have seen the hosting and the code, not before.
What to ask
- What counts as a response and what counts as a fix, and are they measured in working or calendar hours?
- Who decides the severity of a report — you or the supplier?
- How is an issue reported, and does it get a reference number?
- What is out of scope: new features, third-party plugins, hosting you do not control?
- Is there an uptime commitment, and who measures it?
- What happens when a deadline is missed, and how is a credit claimed?
- Who answers outside working hours, and for which cases?