Every company uses technology vendors, such as Software-as-a-Service providers, to provide critical components of their business operations. One pervasive issue in technology vendor agreements is the vendor’s commitment to the levels of service the customer will receive.  A representation to use commercially reasonable efforts to correct product defects or nonconformity with product documentation may not be sufficient for a customer relying on a technology vendor’s service for a mission-critical portion of its business. In this situation, the vendor may offer (and/or a customer may require) a contractual commitment as to the vendor’s levels of service and performance, typically called a “Service Level Agreement” or “SLA.” Service Level Agreements (SLAs) ensure there is a meeting of the minds between a vendor and its customer on the minimum service levels to be provided by that vendor.

In Part 1 of this post, I walked through uptime and issue resolution SLAs.  In this second part, I cover other types of technology SLA commitments, SLA remedies, and other things to watch for.

Other Types of Commitments in SLAs

Other common types of SLAs in technology agreements include latency SLAs and customer service SLAs.

Latency SLAs. “Latency” is the time it takes for a server to receive a server request, process it, and send a response. For example, when you load a webpage, a server request is sent to a web server to deliver the webpage, the server processes the request, and sends a response with the code to render the page in the user’s web browser. Latency can be affected by a number of factors, including the geographic location of servers, network/Internet capacity, and server optimization. For companies using a vendor to provide services as part of its client-facing systems (e.g., an address verification service), minimizing latency to ensure a high level of performance is critical. A latency SLA is a commitment to a maximum roundtrip response time for a vendor server request. Latency SLAs typically exclude the time it takes to get from the customer’s server to the boundary of the vendor’s network, and vice versa (as this is outside of the vendor’s control).

Customer Service SLAs. In some vendor relationships, ensuring the prompt provision of customer support is a critical component of the relationship. For example, if a vendor is providing support to a customer’s clients or employees, or is providing level 2 escalation support, customer support SLA commitments may be important to the customer to ensure a high level of service.  Customer support commitments often include commitments on time to first response (the time from the submission of a request to the time an agent opens the support ticket to begin working on it); time to resolution (total time needed to resolve the issue); average speed to answer (the percent of calls answered within a maximum time, e.g., 85% of calls within 30 minutes, or percent of emails answered within a maximum time, e.g., 90% of emails within 4 business hours); and/or abandonment rate(the maximum number of calls being abandoned in queue before a support agent picks up the call).

SLA Remedies

In order to ensure the service level commitments made by a vendor have teeth, the SLA should have remedies available to the customer in the event of a failure to meet one or more SLA commitments. The remedies are often the most heavily negotiated section of the SLA. There are a variety of remedies that can be applied in the event of a SLA failure.

Service Credits. One of the more common forms of remedy is a service credit, often a percentage of fees paid by the customer for the period in which the SLA failure occurred.  For example, if a vendor fails to meet a 99.9% monthly SLA, a service credit equal to a percentage of the monthly fees paid by the customer would be applied to the next monthly invoice.  A credit is often provided on a tiered basis, up to 100% of the fees for the relevant period based on the size of the SLA miss. Vendors may want to include language ensuring that if multiple credits are available for the same reporting period (e.g., a credit for failure to meet the uptime SLA as well as the issue resolution SLA), only the greater credit will apply.  The credit is usually applied to the next invoice, or if there will be no additional invoice, paid directly to the customer.  For a service credit related to an uptime SLA commitment, instead of a percentage of fees some vendors will offer a credit equal to the fees earned by the vendor during the period of time during which the Service was unavailable during the previous measurement period (or an average of the amount during previous measurement periods), under the theory that the credit is an accurate reflection of the actual fees that would have been earned by the vendor had the service been available in compliance with the SLA.  Customers should carefully consider what fees are used to calculate the credit – customers will want this to be as inclusive as possible.

Termination. In the event of a SLA failure, another remedy commonly offered by vendors is a right to terminate. Vendors typically put restrictions around the exercise of this right, e.g., termination is the sole and exclusive remedy available; termination is limited to the service subject to the SLA failure, not the entire service agreement; it is offered on a “use it or lose it” right which can only be exercised for a period of time following the measurement period in which the SLA failure giving rise to the termination right arose; or the right to terminate is only triggered by multiple failures, such as failure to meet its SLA commitments in three (3) consecutive months or any two (2) out of three (3) consecutive calendar quarters. Customers should carefully consider whether the limits on these rights are appropriate (e.g., ensure that “sole and exclusive remedy” applies only to a SLA failure, and would not preclude the customer enforcing its rights and remedies for any other breaches of the vendor agreement; ensure a right to terminate extends to the entire service agreement if the affected service component is a significant portion of the value of the relationship to the customer; etc.)

Other creative remedies.Vendors and customers should consider whether other creative remedies for a breach of the SLA, such as waiver of fee minimums, waiver or imposition of other contractual obligations, or provision of additional services (e.g., a certain number of free hours of professional services), may be an appropriate remedy for the customer and an appropriate motivator for the vendor to meet its SLA commitments.

Closing Thoughts – Things to Watch For

• Remember that most vendors are trying to provide as close to 100% uptime as possible, and the best possible service they can to their clients. A SLA is intended to be a floor on performance, not a ceiling.
• Some vendors do not include a SLA in their standard service agreement, instead letting customers ask for one. In my experience, less customers will ask for a SLA than you’d think.  It’s always a good idea to ask a vendor to ensure they include their SLA with the service agreement at the outset of the contract negotiation process.
• If the vendor will not agree to include a SLA, ask them why.
  • In some cases, vendors will not provide a SLA with credits to all but their largest clients, relying on the fact that as a multi-tenant platform all clients receive the benefit of the SLAs provided to their largest clients. In this event, customers should consider whether to fight for a direct SLA or rely on their commitments to larger clients (which commitments may change over time).
  • If you can’t get a SLA from a vendor, customers should consider whether to push for a termination for convenience right (and refund of prepaid but unaccrued fees) in the event they are dissatisfied with the service levels they are receiving from the vendor.
  • Customers should also ask whether the service is truly a mission-critical service. If not, it may be worth considering how hard to fight for the SLA, or if the customer can offer to concede the SLA to win on another open negotiation point of greater importance.
• Customers should watch for language in the vendor agreement that gives the vendor the right to unilaterally change terms of the agreement, instead of having changes mutually agreed upon. This unilateral right is often broad enough to allow a vendor to change the terms of the SLA as well. If so, customers may seek to limit the scope to exclude the SLA, or ensure that the agreement includes a termination right as described above.

Eric Lambert has spent most of his legal career working in-house as a proactive problem-solver and business partner. He specializes in transactional agreements, technology/software/e-commerce, privacy, marketing and practical risk management. Any opinions in this post are his own. This post does not constitute, nor should it be construed as, legal advice. He is a technophile and Internet evangelist/enthusiast. In his spare time Eric dabbles in voice-over work and implementing and integrating connected home technologies.