Service Plans and Service Level Agreements

Most of your customers would benefit from a clear agreement itemising what you've agreed to supply them with. This may or may not form part of your formal contract of supply, but if it does it's wise to keep the contract and all legal jargon elsewhere. The SLA document is intended to clearly spell out in the simplest terms the commitments you are making to the customer and of course those they have agreed with you. Examples could include:

• Supply of information between parties at agreed intervals
• Agreed service levels, measures and parameters
• Interface procedures and agreed contact points in various circumstances
• Disaster recovery procedure
• Issue resolution and/or replacement process/commitments
• Service 'preferences' you have agreed with the customer
• Agreed actions between the two parties.

Imonic have worked with many clients to develop and provide formats for service plans/SLAs to meet the needs of both parties. In more complex supply situations these may become three way agreements involving a regulatory body. With one of our clients, a system supplier in the automotive sector, the service plan involved a tier one supplier to an integrated system supplier, which was then overseen by the OEM/carmaker.