Service Intelligence: Improving Your Bottom Line with the Power of IT Service Management

Chapter 6. The Service Agreement

Sometimes called service level agreements, these document the particulars of each service. In terms of the ongoing management of services and measuring against customer expectations, service agreements form the baseline on which quality is measured and success or failure established. This is where a savvy business customer can negotiate meaningful terms that significantly impact the business bottom line.

Each service agreement will be slightly different in what it contains, based on the service details, but every service agreement should contain a minimum list of detailed information (each of these are negotiation points). First, we will look at the basic content areas for a service agreement and examples of what ...