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Version 4.0Date : Friday 25th July 2014

Service Level Agreement& Escalation Process

Document Title: aql SLA and Escalation Procedures

Version Number: 4.0

Owner: Anthony N Other

Document ControlService Level Agreement & Escalation Policy

Contact DetailsThe contents of this document are the copyright of(aq) Limited (aql). All rights reserved. This document or parts thereof may be printed or electronically copied for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use, including the reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission, republication, display or performance of the content on the Website is strictly prohibited without express written authorisation from aql.

ConfidentialityThis document may contain confidential information that is proprietary to (aq) Limited and should not be used, disclosed or reproduced in whole, or in part, for any purpose other than to evaluate the processes contained herein, without the prior written consent of (aq) Limited. Please refer to the document classificationon the title page for clarification.

Contact DetailsShould you have any questions arising from thisdocument please contact Anthony N Other.

Address: (aq) Limited, 13-15 Hunslet Road,Leeds, LS10 1JQInternet www.aql.com

Telephone +44 (0) 1133 20 30 40Fax +44 (0) 1133 20 30 41Email [email protected]

Date of issue: Friday 26th July 2014

Classification: Not classified

Page: 2

DisclaimerNo representation, warranty or understanding is madeor given by this document or the information containedwithin it and no representation is made that theinformation contained in this document is complete, upto date or accurate. In no event shall aql be liable forincidental or consequential damages in connection with, or arising from its use, whether aql was made aware of the probability of such loss arising or not.

Trademarksaql is a registered trademarks of (aq) Limited. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.


Version Number: 4.0

Owner: Melissa Hendry

Contents

Document Control 2

Introduction to aql and our services 3

Purpose of this Document 3

Terms and conditions 3

Fault Reporting 3

Raising a support ticket 5

ailure Classifications

Target Response Time and Target Maximum Fix Time 6

Change Management 7

Rss Feeds 9

Escalation 10

scalation ithin ffice ours

Out of hour’s escalation 11

Complaints and dispute resolution 12

Data protection and Privacy policy 13

Quality management 14



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Introduction to aql and our services(aq) limited t/a aql was established in 1999 as a provider of internet and telephony services for business users. TheCompany is a wholesale carrier of SMS and telecoms services and is regulated by Ofcom. aql is governed by its’terms and conditions found at: http://aql.com/site/termsofservice.phpPurpose of this Code of Practice.

Purpose of this DocumentThe Code informs you about our products, services, and customer care policies. Our code of practice oncomplaint handling and dispute resolutions has been approved by Ofcom, the independent regulator for the UKcommunications industries for the purpose of section 52 of the communications Act 2003.

Terms and ConditionsAll aql services are subject to our standard terms and condition, found here: http://aql.com/site/termsofservice.php.Copies can also be requested in writing by calling 0113 20 30 40 or by writing to us at the above address. Some aqlservices will require a contract.. If you have any questions, please phone our Customer Service Team on 01133 2030 40. We may carry out a credit check as part of our assessment procedures.

We aim to provide services purchased from our online portal at the time of purchase, subject to availability and,here appropriate, licensing. ny ser ices re uire custom or and a o e and eyond the terms specified in an a l

contract will need to be discussed with an account manager, or customer services representative.

Fault Reportinghould you ha e any issues regarding any of our offered ser ices, you should in the first instance chec that the

answer does not already exist within our FAQs or Support Documents found on www.aql.com. If you have a supportquery which cannot be answered from either of the above, please make use of our Customer Ticketing Systemto resolve your query. If your problem has been encountered before, you can search your previous requests whenlogged in to the support system.Customers shall report failures to aql using the following methods:(a) Logging in and raising a support ticket via http://www.aql.com/ The Target Response and Fix times areapplica le to Priority tic ets raised ith sufficient information pro ided y the Customer for the uty ngineer toinvestigate the problem. Tickets raised with a Priority other than 1 will be regarded as enquiries which fall outsidethe scope of the Target Response and Fix times below; or

(b) If the support ticket system is inaccessible, by paging a duty engineer via our pager line (0906 960 5632) callscharged at £1 per minute at all times; or

(c) y calling our office during office hours am to pm onday to riday here a representati e ill raise a supportticket on your behalf.

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hould you ha e any issues regarding any of our offered ser ices, you should in the first instance chec that theanswer does not already exist within our FAQs or Support Documents found on www.aql.com.

f you ha e a support uery hich cannot e ans ered from either of the a o e, please ma e use of our Customer Tic eting ystem to resol e your uery. If your problem has been encountered before, you can search your previous requests when logged in to the support system.

Customers shall report failures to aql using the following methods:

(a) Logging in and raising a support ticket via http://www.aql.com/ The Target esponse and i times are applica le to Priority tic ets raised ith sufficient information pro ided y the Customer for the uty ngineer to in estigate the pro lem. Tic ets raised ith a Priority other than ill e regarded as enquiries which fall outside the scope of the Target Response and Fix times below; or

(b) f the support tic et system is inaccessi le, by paging a duty engineer via our pager line (0906 960 5632) calls charged at £1 per minute at all times; or

(c) By calling our office during office hours 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday here a representati e ill raise a support tic et on your ehalf.

The support system is manned oth in an out of standard office operating hours, here the follo ing tic et prioritieswill be answered in accordance with the table contained within this document.

Monday - Friday 9am - 8pm and Saturday - Sunday 10am - 8pm for priority tic ets categorised as . These tic ets ill e ac no ledged and the in estigation and or escalation process will begin.

Monday - Friday 8pm - 9am and Saturday - Sunday 8pm - 10am for all tic ets categorised and raised as as priority one. These tic ets ill e ac no ledged and the in estigation or escalation process ill commence, all other tic ets ill e processed and escalated in during the time slots outlined above.

ou can e pect confirmation that e ha e recei ed your support re uest ithin appro imately minutes of yourquery being raised, at which time the investigating agent should be able to advise on a resolution time. f your re uest is time critical, please ma e the support agent a are of this ithin the original or a follo up re uest.


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Raising a support ticketOnce you have entered your username and password into the www.aql.com portal, select Account from theAccount Navigation on the left menu > Raise a new support ticket.

Once inside the support system, you will need to select the option to start a new query.From this page you will also be able to review and update existing tickets as well as review any resolved queries.

ail re Classifi ationsAll Failures shall be reported by the Customer to aql in accordance with the failure reporting guidelines outlinedwithin this document, stating the nature of the failure and the information required for its resolution. For thepurposes of the SLA, a failure will be deemed to have been reported at the earlier of when aql ’s Service Deskreceives a report of it and aql opens a ticket in the aql system to track the failure.


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Once a Failure has been reported and aql has performed initial investigations, aql will respond to the Customer byemail with the following information:

(a) Time Failure Reported;(b) Priority classified as and(c) stimated time to resol e ailure for Priority and


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Priority 1 Urgent - Service is Down

Priority 2 High Priority – Services Effected

Priority 3 Normal Priority – Information request

Priority 4 General Enquiry – Account information

Priority 4 Feedback / Suggestion

aql will classify Failures as follows:

Target Response Time and Target Maximum Fix Timeaql will use all reasonable endeavours to respond to the Target Response Time and Target Maximum Fix Time for acustomer y reference to the hours: . to . time, onday to riday, e cluding pu lic holidays, here thefailure is reported to customer support.

Target a imum i Time applies only to failures ithin the direct control of a l no Target a imum i Time shall e deemed to apply to any other types of ailure

aql Target Response Times and Target Maximum Fix Times

minutes hours ery minutes until resolution

hours hours ery hours until resolution

hours days t resolution or as agreed for specific ailure

days days t resolution

Target Response Time(where reported bypriority1 ticket)

Target maximum fi time

Progress reports

Target esponse i Times ailure Priority Target esponse Time here reported y priority tic et .

Change ManagementAny changes made to aql networks, systems or documentation are carefully managed and controlled to avoiddisruption to business practices, partners, resellers, end-users and to the reputation of aql. The section describeshow aql will manage the release of new or amended software components into a live environment.

Customer initiated changes to aql systems or servicesChanges to the aql network, any aql system or service which is requested by a customer must be submitted to aql inwriting, using a copy of the aql change request form (a copy of which will be made available should it be required).

Change requests will be considered where it is deemed applicable and appropriate but may not always be possible.Change requests will be considered in the weekly technical meeting each Tuesday and feedback will be givenwhere possible.

aql initiated maintenance & changes to operational aql systems and/or servicesaql may require short periods of unavailability of Services for maintenance reasons and in order to implementchanges and upgrades. Reasonable endeavours will be used to perform maintenance which requires theunavailability of the Services, or which is reasonably likely to have an adverse effect upon the Services, between thehours of 10.00 - 16:00 UK Time on either Saturday or Sunday.

In the case of planned maintenance aql shall provide 24 hours notice whenever reasonably practicable, and in thecase of emergency maintenance aql shall provide as much advance notice as is reasonably practicable. aql will usereasonable endeavours to provide:

(a) at least 2 weeks advanced notice of any changes to the services which will require the Customer to makemodifications in ho it connects to the Platform and

(b) advance notice of planned maintenance on Network Operator Mobile Networks, the Customer acknowledgingthat the provision of such notice is conditional upon aql itself being provided with notice from the relevant NetworkOperator(s).

aql shall use its reasonable endeavours to conduct maintenance under this paragraph so as to minimise adverseimpact on customers.


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Assessment CriteriaChange requests are assessed using the following criteria:

dentification of the e act change criteria greement of need for the Change dentification of interlin ed systems, platforms, ser ices and sta eholders possi ly affected y the change contractual o ligations that need to e adhered to ssessment of the impact and rgency of the change The intended timing of the change ny ris s that the change may pose ny ris s that not performing the change may pose The test methodology to e employed to determine if the change is successful ull details of the roll ac method in case the change is unsuccessful or causes une pected side effects

Change requests are assessed on the following matrix:


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High igh Priority igh Priority edium Priority

Medium igh Priority edium Priority o Priority

Low edium Priority o Priority o Priority

High Medium Low

URGENCY

IMPA

CT

Urgent changes re uire immediate implementation and therefore testing phases may e shortened or in specificcases mitigated depending on the failure and change re uired.Impact this is the assessment of the num er of people and or systems that ill e affected y the change.

Change Request AuthorisationChange management forms and su se uent in estigatory information on the proposed change s are analysed ythe perations anagement team. ased upon the information pro ided in the change re uest form, the necessityof the change ill e e aluated and may only e appro ed y the Technical perations anager, Net or

perations anager or, depending upon the systems or ser ices at ris , only the anaging irector.

Risk Assessment and Testingll changes are made in compliance and under guidance of the a l change control policy and the a l isssessment Policy and is ssessment Template and Testing Plan. Technical Test Plan ill e agreed y

the a l change o ner and a mem er of the perations team efore the test is scheduled into the de elopmentand rollout calendar. continued >

aql may at any time need to assess the changes made to any system and /or platform and requires accessto historic change requests and management and therefore store all approved change management forms,accompanying risk assessments and technical test plans, by uploading them into the internal secure, permissionsbased document management system for safe storage.

ResponsibilitiesIt is the requirements of the aql change management policy that all system changes are signed off internally, inwriting, by a member of the operations team. No any one person may mitigate this policy by identifying a changeand or implementing a fi ithout see ing sign off from line management or the perations team.

Service Announcements (SA’s)In the event of service interruption, service announcements will be posted on the aql portal which can be viewedwhen by logging into the support system via support.aql.com and will contain details of ffected systems: ffected customers: pected esolution Time: urther nformation: ncluding platforms or systems that are not affected.

or ser ices that are an acti e issue ith the potential to disrupt a large num er of customers, an email notificationis sent to all accounts that ha e su scri ed to recei e email notifications. This function can e toggled off iaaccount homepage hen logged into the a l portal or ia https: .a l.com account n the ery unli ely e entthat the support portal is una aila le, a l may post ser ice updates ia email or ia the a l t itter feed http:twitter.com/aqldotcom.

RSS Feedsa l ha e also created an feed for all ser ice announcements, ena ling partners to recei e feeds of all ourposted ser ice announcements and maintenance notices, ia email. To access the secure feed simply pointyour client at https: .a l.com account ser ice.php, and enter your username and pass ord.


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In the event the query cannot be resolved immediately we will keep you appraised of progress, and a member ofstaff can contact you at a convenient time to discuss further should you require. Please note that we do requireall account related requests to be logged within the support system for future reference, and that we cannotundertake action on requests made outside of our support system (such as by email or telephone call).When raising a support request please endeavour to make as much relevant information available as possible -where we need to request this information would only delay our investigation of your problem.

Escalation PathThe escalation path below is followed internally by aql. If a customer wishes to escalate, the customer shouldinform the Service Desk or their account manager who will escalate to the relevant person.

Level I Duty Engineer Account Manager

Technical Escalation Medium

Escalation

Level II Technical Manager Sales Manager

Level III Technical Director Operations Director

Final Escalation CEO CEO

scalation - ithin ffice ours. uring a l office hours

onday riday am pm the first escalation point is to contact your account manager. They will assess your query and escalate internally where required.Their details are found on the homepage whenyou login to your account, as below:

2. Management Escalation – Please contact the appropriate manager for your escalation query; explain thesituation and quoting your support ticket number.

. f you are still dissatisfied or ha e a need to escalate eyond the management team, the ne t point of contact iseither our, Technical Director or our operations Director, who will investigate the escalated issue and advise uponthe next steps and time-scales.


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1. Raise a priority 1 ticket via the aql support system. This pages our on-call engineer. If the issue you need to escalate is detailed in an existing ticket, you will need to raise a new priority 1 ticket requesting that the existing ticket is looked into. You will receive a response within the time-scales noted within this document under Target Response Time and Target Maximum Fix Time.

2. If you need to speak to an engineer urgently or are unable to raise a support ticket, contact the on-call dutyengineer via 01133 22 06 55. This number is answered 24/7 and will be answered by the on call engineer.

Further Escalation – Level 1, 2, 33. If for any reason you are unable to reach the duty engineer on 01133 22 06 55, or feel the need to escalate your

uery outside of office hours, please contact a mem er of the ops Team e el :

4. f you need to escalate further, please contact the Technical irector e el

5. The final step in the escalation procedure is the C e el ho e er, all other contacts a o e should econtacted before escalation is made to the Managing Director.

Escalation Time-scale Matrixhould a situation arise hich re uires escalating further oth in and out of office hours , the escalation matrielo gi es guidance as to the times scales to follo . sers should select the current tic et Priority Top Column

and the current le el of support the issue currently resides ith. nce the t o are cross referenced, the figure gi esan indication as to the time-scales that should pass before the issue is escalated.

Reasons for Outagen official eason for outage ill e a aila le et een and hours after an e ent, depending on the

amount of time needed for diagnosis. The RFO will be available from the account managers and the support desk.

Support system

Level I

Level 2

Level 3

Ticket priority 1

Out of hours escalation

Immediate Immediate Immediate Immediate

mmediate hours hours days

4 hours 24 hours 2 days 2 weeks

hours days days n a

Ticket priority 2 Ticket priority 3 Ticket priority 4


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We make every effort to ensure that our customers are happy with the level of service, and the products andservice they receive from us. Despite our best efforts, things can go wrong. We take customer complaints veryseriously and e aim to resol e them uic ly and efficiently.

If you have a problem with the way we have sold, provisioned or delivered the service to you, please contact ourCustomer Service Team on 01133 20 30 40. Our advisors will ask you for details about your complaint and seekto resolve the problem while you are on the line. You may be required to supply your username and password toauthenticate your call.Alternatively, please write to us detailing full information of the nature of your complaint:

By email: [email protected] By letter: (aq) Limited, 13-15 Hunslet Road, Leeds, LS10 1JQ By email: 01133 20 30 40 By Fax : 01133 20 30 41

Our customer service staff will do their utmost to successfully resolve any problems at that point. If, however, yourproblem cannot be resolved during the phone call, we will agree a course of action with you. If you remain unhappy

ith the ay in hich your complaint has een handed in the first instance, you may contact the Customer er iceManager via [email protected] mentioning your case reference number. They will respond and aim to resolveyour complaint within 48 hours.

If the Customer Service Manager is unable to resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you may escalate your concernto the Operations Director and again if unsuccessful, to the Managing Director by emailing [email protected]. Inboth cases, they will aim to respond to you within 48 hours.

Please note that in all cases, we ask that you mention your incident reference number in all correspondence, andthat you work with our management team to resolve your concern. In the unlikely event that your complaint has notbeen resolved by aql to your satisfaction within a period of eight weeks, or if during the process of investigating yourcomplaint you believe the situation has reached a deadlock, you may refer your complaint to CISAS for independentconsideration. CISAS is an independent organisation which is approved by Ofcom to provide alternative disputeresolution (ADR) service. Ofcom-approved ADR services sort out disputes between communication providers andtheir consumer and small business customers. Their job is to investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sidesof the story. They look at the facts given to them before deciding any action that may be needed to put things right.

Complaints and dispute resolution


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We comply fully with our obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.Our Data Protection Act Registration Number is PZ809682X

aql is a registered data controller under the Data Protection Act - registration number X4464172. When you usethe Website you may be asked to provide aql with personal information such as your name, address, phone number,email address and credit/debit card details. aql is committed to protecting your privacy and this privacy policygoverns how aql will use such information.

aql will use your personal information in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Information about youwill be used to process your order and to provide you with the best possible service, including dealing with yourqueries and sending you information about changes in the aql service. aql will not release, offer or sell your personalinformation to third parties ithout first see ing your consent, e cept that you here consent to your personalinformation being transferred to any third party acquiring substantially all of aql ’s assets. The information aql holdswill be accurate and up to date. You are entitled to ask for a copy of your personal information (for which aql maycharge a small fee) and to ask aql to correct any inaccuracies or update your personal information at any timecontacting aql at (aq) Limited, 13-15 Hunslet Road, Leeds, LS10 1JQ or by raising a support ticket via our onlinesupport portal.

aql may need to transfer your personal information to countries that do not provide the same level of dataprotection as is required in the UK. aql will transfer your personal information only in accordance with the relevantprovisions of the Data Protection Act 1998. Submitting your personal information to aql you consent to suchtransfer. aql may use technology to track the patterns of behaviour of visitors to the aql website, such as “cookies”which would be stored on your browser. Cookies can store information about your preferences on a particularsite and can pro ide useful features. These coo ies ha e a finite lifetime and do not store or pass any credit cardinformation to your browser. If you prefer you can set your browser to refuse cookies; please refer to your browserinstructions to learn more about these functions.

This privacy policy does not cover third party websites that you can link to through the Website.We accept no liability for these sites. If you have any complaints, questions or comments about this privacy policyor aql ’s use of your personal information, you can contact aql at 13-15 Hunslet Road, Leeds, LS10 1JQ or email us [email protected].

Data protection & Privacy policy


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Quality Managementaql are a member of the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme and employ an in-houselegal and regulatory affairs lawyer, in order to ensure compliance with all legislation, including that pertaining totelecommunications. We operate quality assurance systems in-line with ISO9001 and employ ITIL best practicemethodology in all IT project management, including the application and adherence to TickIT Guidelines forSoftware Development.

As an ISO 27001 accredited organisation, we continually review and adjust company policies and working practices to incorporate and assess any changes in security threats, vulnerabilities and the impact of any information security failures in line with the security standard.

Awarded with an ITSPA quality mark in July 2010, aql operate under the ITSPA Code of Practice. Working in line with a set Quality Management framework which has a focuses on customer satisfaction, a systematic approach to management and leadership, we ensure a factual approach to decision making is undertaken and a continuous drive for reduced operating costs and improved stake-holder relationships.