SLAs – Broken Promises
SLAs – Broken Promises
May 2006: The network industry is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success and, in the process, irreparably damaging its long term value. With a UK market worth £40 billion (NF to confirm), manufacturers are falling over each other to win market share. It is little wonder that they are unwilling to raise the bar on reseller accreditation: making the process too arduous would mean a fast track to market obscurity.
But where does this leave the customer? While product sales should, in theory, be covered by some form of warranty, when it comes to service there are far too many organisations that simply cannot deliver on their promises.
And many have no intention of doing so. Network support and maintenance, for an increasing number, is a license to print money. Train a couple of engineers, get accredited and offer low cost support. The inability to meet SLAs due to lack of skills or spares is irrelevant. Customers cancelling contracts is hardly an issue – just move on to the next company looking for a bargain.
To say these organisations are giving the rest a bad name is an understatement. And until vendors take responsibility for robust accreditation that addresses support as well as sales, the onus has to be on the customer to undertake rigorous due diligence on any support provider. A paltry penalty payment for missing an SLA is hardly going to recompense an organisation adequately for the mayhem caused by serious network failure.
There are several key steps that must be taken to get the right support provider:
- Check the level of investment in spares – really check it: go to the warehouse/depot and undertake a spot check.
- Check the locations of spares and engineers – is a two hour response time really viable from these locations?
- Assess the level of qualification of engineers: what accreditations they have achieved – and when. Many companies make extraordinary claims about their engineering resource on web sites or in brochures. In reality they have a fraction of the numbers and an inadequate skill resource. Physical checks are essential to verify the real experience and knowledge of those responsible for keeping your network up and running.
- What is the escalation process? A good network maintainer can fix 80% of calls via remote diagnostics. The rest are tough fixes and will require rapid access to excellent, specific skills. How quickly and effectively can that process be managed?
- Insist on test calls as part of the contract – and, preferably, run a test call before you sign the contract.
- Develop a meaningful SLA – don’t just take a standard contract. Every organisation will have some unique feature that requires a tailored SLA. Whether it is enhanced support during specific timelines – pre Christmas – or support for a remote operation, a standard out of the box contract is unlikely to suit every organisation.
- Undertake regular assessments. Due diligence should not be a one off process. Even if the contract is three, or five years, to ensure continuity of service, organisations should check accreditations are still valid and that engineering and spares resources are still adequate. How many new customers has the supplier attained – have resource levels been scaled up accordingly? An annual check should be a standard procedure.
- Avoid tie-ins that make breaking a contract expensive: if a company is providing bad service it should be a simple process to break the contract. Any company confident of its service delivery should be happy to offer a contract break if service has fallen below par. If it is not easy to walk away if the quality is bad – don’t sign.
