Service level agreements may be very formal or consist of a few sentences in your service contract.  Whatever format it takes, there are some things that you need to consider before constructing your service level agreement.   

The first thing to take into consideration when forming a service level agreement is anticipating how often you need to be on-site.  You need to know your time commitment in terms of taking care of their needs.  How many phone calls, how many emails, or things like that is the client going to need in between visits?

Example:

If you have a client with five work stations and one server, you will probably be on-site once a month for two or three hours.  Additionally, you will probably provide an hour or so of phone support over the course of the month.

So for your service level agreement you should figure on providing about four or five hours a month to take care of on-site and phone support as well as all the miscellaneous follow up issues that emerge.  Remember too, with service level agreements, if the client has any upgrades or projects, that is above and beyond the agreement.  


The second consideration is how to sell a service level agreement.  Essentially you need to give clients a compelling package of benefits.  Here are some examples:
  • If your rate is $125 an hour then if they have a $500 per month service level agreement, your rate effectively drops to $100 an hour.  
  • In addition to the hourly savings, service level agreements should also include your being available to come onsite for emergencies.
  • Consider offering a service level agreement that provides weekend or evening work without charging them extra.  
  • Include a little bit of proactive maintenance to clients on service level agreements.  
Bottom Line on Service Level Agreements
Your main consideration with service level agreements is to anticipate how much time a client will typically need based on their applications and servers. The second issue to address is how you will get clients onto service level agreements in the first place.  Offering a package of soft benefits above and beyond just the dollar benefits, is the best way to entice clients to sign up for a service level agreement.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Service Level Agreements. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Service Level Agreements, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.