Develop a Service Level Agreement

            It has been clear that Service Level Agreement developed by Tampa Bay Office Furniture Inc. for its customers have been a good initiative with all required elements, which can satisfy the needs of customers. But still, it is important for any company like Tampa Bay Office Furniture Inc. to understand the fact that SLAs do not prove as beneficial as expected because there may be difference in the perception made by the company and what is perceived by the customer. It is vital to elaborate an example for the understanding that how customer perception or expectation can be different from actual activity done according to SLA. A company has made an assumption that timely delivery of service is not being done in customer services and it should be made part of SLA. On the other hand, customer may not be happy with the quality of service rather its timely delivery. It means that there would be huge difference between assumption made by the company, and actual issue faced by the customer. So, to integrate IT in its service level agreement, it is crucial for Tampa Bay Office Furniture Inc. to realize that what expectations are made by the customers, and what they should include in their SLA.

            When SLA developed for the Tampa Bay Office Furniture Inc. is analyzed and assessed closely, one can find that various areas of SLA can be improved or changed with addition of elements in its different parts. The SLA should involve best practices so that it can be acceptable both for the company and customer. So, it is crucial to look at best practices associated with SLA so that Tampa Bay Office Furniture Inc. is assessed on the measures described in these best practices. The first thing for any company to understand is that why they actually need SLA. It is vital to understand that when IT related tasks or services are provided, then role of SLA is very critical in so many ways. The SLA not only keeps the information at one place, but it also helps to define the expectation of each service being provided. The company should understand that description of relevant services is not the only objective of SLA; rather they should also include metrics, which will be used to define as well as measure the services being agreed in SLA (BODLE)

            The other best and must part of the SLA is that it should determine that what measures and actions will be taken, when any kind of breach is made in SLA agreed by company and the customer. The metrics should clearly be defined to ensure that if any party has not been able to keep its promise, then it should be held accountable, if I actually was guilty of that breach. For instance, there can be a situation, where company was not able to satisfy the need of customer in time, because customer did not provide relevant information within given time. So, company could not get timely information, and issue cannot be resolved accordingly. Now, apparently it is negligence of the company that it cannot provide the agreed service, but whether they should be penalized for it? The answer is “no”, they cannot be punished for it, because customer is also guilty of not providing the information in timely manner. It shows that situations can vary in this regard, and each situation will be measured on its merit as per agreed measures of evaluation (Overby, Greiner and Paul)

When the Tampa Bay Office Furniture Inc. is analyzed with detail, it is evident that it is missing various required elements of a comprehensive service level agreement. So, some of the missing elements are discussed below:

        The first major element which is missing in the SLA is any metric or measure to evaluate the situation. It is necessary for any SLA to include evaluation criteria that how each provided service will be evaluated, and how things will be handled, if service requirement or agreement is not met accordingly. The company should have included evaluation criteria, for instance, if they have agreed to respond to customer complaint and resolve it within 48 hours’ time, and issue was not resolved in 48 hours, then how situation will be handled. There can be various aspects to deal with such situation; first of all, it would be analyzed that why delay happened, was there any issue in technology or representative was failed to fulfill the requirement? If any unexpected situation happened like any IT resources were down, so service cannot be provided in given timeframe, then it should be fine for both company and the customer.

       The company and customer should also make an agreement with mutual understanding that what penalties will be incurred by each party if any breach happens from any side. For instance, the company has agreed that service will be provided to customer in given deadline, but somehow company was not able to do so, which means that agreement has been breached from SLA. In this situation, customer should be provided any kind of reward, if mistake was made on side of the company. They can compensate customer by renewing their service on discounted price, or providing any other reward so that customer remain happy and satisfied from the agreed service.

       There must be a clause in the agreement, which provided a remedy if any breach is made by any of the two parties. It is important to mention this remedy so that justice is served in any given situation. There can be various situations, where one may feel that service agreement was breached and requirements were not met properly, then there should a criteria as well as platform to launch a complaint, and get remedies according to set measures in the SLA. The good thing about such points mentioned in the SLA is that if any kind of conflict or issue arises, the agreed metrics will be used to handle the situation, which would reduce the intensity of any breach, and things can be resolved more precisely.