Vertical IT Solutions

Support Service Level Agreement / Standard Operating Procedure

Support Service Level Agreement (SLAs):

The following defines our SLAs in regards to support ticket response time. It is important that you read this document in its entirety in order to receive support from Vertical IT Solutions.

The Support Specific Deliverables shall be called upon and initiated via our formal support protocol, which is defined as: an email to support@verticalcomputers.com during business-hours**, a phone call to (909) 929-1800 option 2 during business-hours**, or a phone call to our 24-Hour IT Emergency Hotline (909) 929-1811 after or during business-hours**, all which will create a support ticket.

Though we typically aim to respond within 1 hour from the time we are contacted via our formal support protocol, please note that response times may need to be adjusted due to Vertical IT Solutions’ business-hours**. For example, if a support ticket is opened at 4:15PM, it may not receive a response until the next business day.

Tickets can be escalated by following the procedures below.

Our SLAs for support tickets are defined as follows: standard, medium, high, and critical.

Standard Priority

  • SLA Response*: 4 Hours
  • Escalation: This is the default priority level for all new support tickets, but escalation is available upon request (see other priority levels below).
  • Severity: “Non-Critical — User Impacted”, defined as a problem that has impacted functionality and performance but is not essential to business effectiveness.

Medium Priority

  • SLA Response*: 2 Hours from time of escalation
  • Escalation: Standard priority tickets can be escalated, upon request, to Medium priority level by contacting us a second time via our formal support protocol, and referencing your initial ticket.
  • Severity: “Non-Critical — Business Impacted”, defined as problems that are impacting functionality or performance to business productivity, but are not critical to profitability or reputation.

High Priority

  • SLA Response*: 1 Hour from time of escalation
  • Escalation: Medium priority tickets can be escalated, upon request, to High priority level by contacting us a third time via our formal support protocol, and referencing your initial ticket.
  • Severity: “Non-Critical — System Down”, defined as problems that have impacted functionality to business performance, causing un-usability or un-availability and no workaround exists.

Critical Priority

  • SLA Response*: 30 Minutes from time of submission/escalation
  • Escalation: Critical priority tickets begin at, or are escalated to, this level if they are initiated via our 24-Hour IT Emergency Hotline. Certain tickets will also be set to this level by our support team when applicable.
  • Severity: “Critical — Business Down”, defined as problems that are impacting functionality or performance resulting in negative effects to business profitability or reputation.

Important Notes (PLEASE READ):

Escalation requests are only processed during Vertical IT Solutions business-hours**. For after-hours escalations, please contact us via our 24-Hour IT Emergency Hotline (909) 929-1811

Though tickets can be escalated by following the procedures mentioned above, Vertical IT Solutions will make the ultimate decision regarding the final ticket level. When multiple tickets exist at the same level, Vertical IT Solutions will use common sense, as well as work with the customer, to decide which tickets have priority.

*SLA response is defined by our support team responding to your request for support in any fashion. I.e. replying with questions to further understand your issue, proposing a scheduled time to take the next step towards resolution, or resolving and responding with notification that the issues has been resolved.

**Business-hours are defined as 8AM-5PM Monday through Friday, Pacific Time (United States), unless otherwise stated in your customer agreement. We are also closed during major holidays***.

***Holidays we are closed: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and day after, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve (half day). Note: for some years, the observed day differs from the actual holiday date