offer service credits as a sole and exclusive remedy for a failure to meet the agreed service levels. This means that the customer should review the level of service credits being offered and assess whether they would represent adequate compensation for the unavailability of the service.
Conclusion - Setting the expectation
The SLA sets the expectation for the relationship between the supplier and the customer. Not all SLAs are the same. Customers should read the fine print and ensure they, or their corporate IT team, undertake suitable due diligence and assessment of the SLA for a new cloud service. An SLA that contains the well-defined core criteria of availability, access to customer data and performance and remediation metrics will, over the term of the contract, save the parties money and improve customer satisfaction.