The Service Level Agreement - The Glass is Never (Completely) Full

Positive or negative thinking is sometimes visualized bya product.
a person expression his or her vision about the level ofA special feature of a service is that -- again in
a glass; being either half FULL or half EMPTY.difference with a product -- it is maximized; whatever
Try to remember a situation in which you thought youeffort you put 'behind' the service, there is one LEVEL
had a deal with someone, but in the end, there wasn'tthat cannot be succeeded (and that is the level of a
such a deal, only an intention. For example:100 percent). This is sometimes regarded as a
- You had stored 900 Mb at one of your free internetfrustrating feature and therefore called a dis-satisfier. If
mail providers. You stored important documents andyou provide the right level, you have just done what
the next time you logged in it appears that they wereyou should have done. Are you underperforming this
no longer there. There was however 1Gb of freelevel, than you could be in a mayor problems.
space on your account.Unless you have thought about setting up a Service
- You are offering an internet service to your clients,Level Agreement (SLA). This SLA describes the level
they login to your tool environment, they pass theof the glass under different circumstances and the
credit card payments and all of a sudden your serverconsequences when the level is below the accepted
is down. You received the payment, but they didn't findcriteria.
their service...This provides both parties a clear definition when the
A service is -- in difference with a product -- a facilityglass is half full or half empty. The next step is to
that is provided by someone, or a company whichmanage this agreement by means of service level
support the other (Company) in achieving its process.management. And that is just another step to take.
This (primary) process could be selling or to producing