When it comes to Software as a Service (SaaS), the most important thing for beginners is understanding how a Service-Level-Agreement (SLA) works. This post will explore what an SLA means and why they are so crucial in SaaS agreements. Don’t worry; we’ll discuss the SaaS SLA best practices more as we go along.

When considering an IT investment, it is important to try the product for free first. In addition, understanding what a service level agreement (SLA) entails will help make your decision easier.

SaaS SLA Best Practices

One of the most important aspects of any service-level agreement is that, usually for their own self-interest, providers are often able to write agreements according to what they want. This means it’s crucial before signing an SLA with a provider to read through and evaluate it carefully.

 

What is Included in an SLA?

A service-level agreement is more than just the technology; it also includes things such as when you would be notified in case of a security breach and data availability after termination. An SLA defines how good your service will be expressed with three nines or five nines, for example. Less downtime usually translates into increased costs, so one shouldn’t expect low costs if there are high downtimes.

Defining Downtime

As part of the SaaS SLA best practices, defining downtime in an SLA is crucial because it can be a contentious issue. For example, what happens if there’s scheduled maintenance?

What counts as downtime for the provider may not count as downtime for the end-user – they would want compensation even when the system isn’t down. Click To Tweet

The average response time for customers to get their problem resolved was four hours, and the repair process took an additional two days.

There are many different problems, and not all need to be addressed immediately. For example, an issue can range from a low severity-1 problem that will take less than 15 minutes for the provider to fix through a serious severity-3 problem that may require hours or days before it is fixed. If you have VIP users with important email accounts who could be affected by these issues, they should also prioritize ‘normal’ users.

The Path to Success

In SaaS SLA best practices, it’s important to know who is responsible for communicating with the vendor if there are any problems. Unfortunately, online support often does not have full administrative access, which can make it difficult to fix things quickly.

Self-assessment

When it comes to SaaS SLA best practices, one should not put all their faith in the SLA and think they will get what is promised. Instead, a more practical approach is to keep an eye on things yourself, evaluate service regularly with service level agreement metrics like availability of services, quality of service, customer experience, know-how provider plans to respond if disaster strikes (or be prepared for it).

Service level agreements dictate how the service is provided and what will happen if it’s interrupted and outline who gets to make decisions about resolving problems. You might think that this doesn’t matter after you sign an SLA because your provider promises high-quality customer service all of the time – however, no one likes being forced into a corner.

Terms of the Agreement

As part of the SaaS SLA best practices, providers should avoid using legal terminology in their SaaS SLA because it can be too confusing for an average user. Providers need to remember that while they may not understand every term, a professional lawyer will and could even take advantage of this.

Structure of the SLA

A service level agreement is like a mini-insurance policy in the outsourcing landscape. In other words, this type of agreement allows businesses to concentrate on running their companies without worrying about the service they’re getting.

A vague SLA will not offer any real protection, but it’s worth having one nonetheless. Click To Tweet

That’s it! Those are the SaaS SLA best practices you may use in your career and company.