Zeald Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Introduction and Purpose

This SLA is an addendum to our Terms of Trade located at http://www.zeald.com/tot ("ToT") and should be read in conjunction with our ToT. 

If any conflict arises between the terms of this SLA and those of the ToT in relation to Subscribed Services (as defined below), the terms of the ToT shall prevail.

Capitalised terms not otherwise defined in this SLA shall have the meaning given to those terms in the ToT.

The purpose of this SLA is to:

1. define the level of support that we will provide in delivering the Subscribed Services;
2. set out our responsibilities for managing and delivering our support for Subscribed Services; and
3. describe the parameters for evaluating and measuring the delivery of our support for the Subscribed Services.

This Service Level Agreement (including, without limitation, the entitlement to compensation) shall not apply for any month that you are, or have been, in breach of the ToT including, without limiting the foregoing, the failure to make payment of any moneys due to us on the due date. 

Reviews, Changes And Updates

This SLA applies to you from the date you commence using the Subscribed Services.
  
This SLA may be reviewed, changed and updated from time to time at monthly intervals, or earlier, so as to be compliant with new variants of the Subscribed Services and/or technical demands (whether ours or third party suppliers) which may be required for the management, security and delivery of our support for the Subscribed Services. 
 
Any change to this SLA will be  posted on our website and and we will communicate these changes to you via email or by notifying you via the administration section of your Website (if any).  If you object to the changes, you may cease using the Subscribed Services by providing us with one month's written notice of termination. You will be taken to have accepted the updates and/or changes to the SLA if you continue to make use of the Subscribed Services (whether in their original state or as variants thereof) and do not give us any notice of termination. If you are in any doubt as to the current terms of the SLA that apply to the Subscribed Services please visit our website http://www.zeald.com/tot or contact Customer Services.

Services Covered By SLA

This SLA applies, but subject always to any limitation, exclusion or qualification expressly stated in the relevant tables below and/or in this SLA generally, to any of the following services which you have subscribed ("Subscribed Services"):

1. Budget Hosting
2. Budget Plus Hosting
3. Professional Hosting
4. Premium Hosting
5. Enterprise Hosting
6. Standard Help Desk Support
7. Premium Support
8. Enterprise Support

Website Hosting

The SLA terms for the website hosting services that we will provide are set out in the table below:
 

Please note: 

1. None of the above SLA terms apply to Shopify websites, Squarespace websites or any other website hosted on a third party system not supplied, supported or managed by us.
2. Website Uptime Guarantees are provided only for Premium Hosting and Enterprise Hosting plans. Website Uptime Guarantees do not apply to Budget Hosting, Budget Plus Hosting, and Professional Hosting plans. With these plans, where any number or percentage figure is stated in relation to a Website Uptime Guarantee, that number or percentage figure is merely indicative and we do not give any warranty, promise or assurance that we will achieve the number or percentage figure. 
3. Promotion, Catalogue, Commerce and Commerce Plus ZEST websites supplied, supported and managed by us (unless specifically stated otherwise) utilise, as a default, Professional Hosting.
4. Profile ZEST websites supplied, supported and managed by us (unless specifically stated otherwise) utilise, as a default, Budget Hosting. 
5. Website and hosting support services are available during the core support hours of 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday ("Core Support Hours").
6. Non-urgent website and hosting support services required outside the Core Support Hours may incur additional Charges as will be advised before providing the website and hosting support services which will incur the additional Charges. 

Support Services

The SLA terms for the support services that we will provide are set out in the table below.
 

 

Maximum Response Times (initial & ongoing)

Please note: 

1. A "business day" means a day of the week other than a Saturday, Sunday or a statutory holiday including (without limitation) Auckland Anniversary Day.
2. Our response time will be dependent on the complexity of the inquiry. The highest priority will be given to network and server unavailability and to customers who have subscribed for higher levels of support.
3. Maximum response time guarantees are provided only for Premium Support and Enterprise Support plans.  No response time guarantee is given for Standard Helpdesk Support, and any response time stated in relation to Standard Helpdesk Support is merely indicative and we do not provide any warranty, promise or assurance that we will achieve such a response time.

How to access

Please use the direct dial number, mobile number or email address provided by your account manager or, in the event they are unavailable, contact our helpdesk via any of the links below
Phone:

• NZ:  0508 932 748 or 09 415 7575
• AU:  1800 224 032

• Mon - Fri only

• Mon - Fri only

After hours support: http://support.zeald.com/2015/11/19/user-pays-after-hours-support
 

Fair Use Policy

Our Standard Helpdesk Support package, Premium Support package and Enterprise Support package are all subject to this fair use policy.  If you have purchased any of these support packages, there is no limit on the number of support cases that you can log with our team each month.  We may, however, in our sole and absolute discretion, elect to apply a reasonable use limit on a customer by customer basis as detailed below.
    
If we elect to apply these reasonable use limits and you continue to exceed these limits then additional Charges for support may apply on a case by case basis. If this is the case, we will advise you before providing the support which will incur additional Charges.  We also reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to elect to discontinue our provision of support services to you at anytime.
 
All our support packages do not cover problems in your computer, communication equipment, your software (except for software (if any) provided by us), your phone line, your internet connection or any other part of the internet not controlled by us.

SLA Exclusions

Whilst our aim is to provide a high level of service availability, many situations are completely beyond our control and, therefore, are outside of the scope of, and excluded from, this SLA. Such situations shall not qualify for any of the compensation specified in this SLA, and none will be given.  These situations may include (without limitation):
                 

1. Scheduled Maintenance - occasionally network, hardware or software maintenance will be required. We will use our best endeavours, to the extent the circumstances permit, to minimise and avoid downtime during these types of maintenance activities. You will receive prior notification of upcoming maintenance at the e-mail address we have on file. 
2. Malicious Attacks - if a third party not associated with us initiates a ‘Denial of Service Attack’ or other form of disabling attack against your website or major portions of our network, we will do everything in our power to stop the attack and minimise the impact of the attack, but cannot guarantee a resolution time.  For customers on hosting plans that have DOS prevention facilities provided as part of the plan we are usually able to mitigate the effects of the attack much more rapidly than those without such facilities.
3. If we need to temporarily take your website down to protect it from being hacked or exploited or if we need to take your website down because we reasonably suspect it has already been hacked or exploited and it is a risk to others. 
4. Force Majeure - Unforeseeable circumstances are excluded.  These include, without limitation, war, acts of terrorism, riots, fire, flood, hurricane, typhoon, earthquake, lightning, explosion, strikes, lockouts, slowdowns, prolonged shortage of energy supplies, and acts of state or governmental action prohibiting or impeding any party from performing its respective obligations under a contract. 
5. Legal Actions - If any legal action or proceeding (whether civil or criminal) is taken against you and we are required to act in accordance with any order or directive that may be issued by a Court in such action or proceeding, we shall act accordingly without any prior notice to you and we shall not be liable to you for any loss whatsoever or howsoever arising from our inability to provide the Subscribed Services.
6. Third party systems failure - We rely on, and use, some third party services to provide responses to our customers. These include, without limitation,  our Live-chat system, open source or cloud-hosted software systems used within your website including the base platform on which your website runs, your domain name or SSL certificate or any third-party plugins or addons in your website. If a third party system’s failure prevents us from complying with the our response time or server uptime, then, that particular failure or event will not entitle you to claim from us any compensation, and none will be given.
7. Internet connection failure - We shall not be liable for any internet connection failure not attributable directly to our own act or omission. 
8. Configuration issues or ‘bugs’ caused by you or a third-party.
9. Issues caused by upgrades to the underlying software platform of your website, whether these upgrades are completed automatically, initiated by you, or initiated by us on your behalf  including, without limitation, breakages to customisations or third-party plugins.
10. Content or display issues, including, without limitation, situations where your website is working but displaying content that you consider to be incorrect, spelling mistakes, design or layout problems, or incorrect pricing.
11. Performance issues where your website continues to run but response times are longer than usual.
12. Performance issues or downtime caused by excessive traffic to your website, beyond that amount which your chosen website hosting package is designed to deal with. 
13. Downtime caused by your site being suspended due to exceeding the prescribed limits of your chosen hosting plan.
14. Where the Subscribed Services are specifically excluded from this SLA, such as the  Budget Hosting service, Budget Plus Hosting service, Professional Hosting service, and the Standard Helpdesk Support service.

SLA Remedies

In the event that we do not meet the response time guarantee or server uptime guarantee detailed in this SLA,  and such failure is confirmed by our monitoring systems, then, you will be eligible to be compensated for our failure to meet the applicable guarantee. In the event that this situation occurs, you will become eligible to receive a credit calculated at 10 times (1,000%) the time that has elapsed outside of our response time guarantee or uptime guarantee. By way of amplification and as an example only,  if your website is unreachable for 1 hour beyond the server uptime guarantee percentage stipulated in this SLA, then, you will receive 10 hours of credit against your website hosting fees.  Similarly, if, for example, we are 1 hour over our response time guarantee, then, you will receive 10 hours of credit against your website support fees.
                      
All requests for compensation must be received by us within 10 business days of the incident in question. No request for compensation will be considered or allowed if the same was received outside of this period.  A "business day" means a day of the week other than a Saturday, Sunday or a statutory holiday including (without limitation) Auckland Anniversary Day. 
 
The maximum compensation you may be entitled to claim shall not exceed, in the aggregate, the website hosting or website support Charges (as applicable) payable by you for the relevant month during which the incident, in respect of which compensation is sought, occurred. Any compensation given to you shall be deducted from the current month invoice.   
 
No compensation will be given for any events or circumstances expressly excluded in this SLA, and we are not obliged to give you, and you agree not to claim, compensation for cumulative events all occurring in, or arising out of, the same incident.   By way of amplification and as an example only,  if an uptime guarantee event and a response time guarantee event happen simultaneously then compensation will only be given for only one of those events.

Definitions

• “Hosting Support” means support services provided by us to support and resolve issues associated with your website hosting. There are a number of measures that we take to proactively support your website hosting such as website monitoring (checking whether your website is up or down or performing slowly) and ongoing maintenance and upgrades to the servers that host your website (to keep the hosting equipment up-to-date and performing as optimally as possible). As part of our hosting support you can also call us to discuss and resolve any issues you feel you may have with your website hosting that we may not have identified in advance.
• “Low Priority Cases” means cases where an error has low or minor business impact, and/or where a workaround exists.
• “Standard Priority Cases” means cases are where you are experiencing a business impact but that impact is not critical. Examples include an error that is impacting on your business and there is no (practical) workaround or where you have a marketing campaign about to launch and are experiencing a blocking issue that is critical to that campaign but the campaign can be delayed if necessary.
• “Urgent Priority Cases” means cases where there is business critical impact. Examples include the case where a website is not functioning in a critical way, i.e. it is down, or it’s primary conversion process (orders, enquires or form submissions) is not working.
• “Initial Response Time” means the time it takes us to acknowledge an issue being experienced by you, measured from the time you notify us of the issue until the time you are advised that we have received your notification.
• “Ongoing Response Time” means the time it takes us to provide you with an update as to our progress in resolving your issue, measured from the time of our last communication with you until the time that you are advised of our progress to date or the resolution of the issue.
• “Website Support” means support services provided by us to support your website. As part of our proactive support we carry out regular security updates on your website (in addition to the security updates we complete on the website hosting servers as part of our hosting support) to minimise the chances of your website being hacked or exploited.  We will inform you when we have completed security updates on your website. As part of the website support service you can also call us for help on how to accomplish certain tasks on your website or if you website isn't functioning correctly or regarding any other issue you may have in respect of your website.
• “Website Uptime Guarantee” means a guaranteed proportion of time per calendar month that the website responds to an HTTP GET request made to the homepage from our monitoring service with a 200 HTTP status code. Downtime is defined as when an HTTP GET request from our monitoring service either times out, can't connect, or returns a status code >= 400 (indicating an error, eg 404 Not Found or 500 Internal Server error).